Tigers’ French hero wants to impress Bayern

The gaps between the two are very large, and yet there is one pretty conspicuous line of similarity between our Premier League, and the Mexican League that this year sends a representative, Tigers, to the World Cup finals for teams: stars do not fall to them from the sky just like that.

So, just as it is hard to imagine any striker who belongs today to the squad of the French team that lands here at Betar Jerusalem, for example, so was the big surprise when in 2015 Tigers, then a team that builds itself and tries to establish itself as a local dominant force, signed Andre Pierre G. Janiac from Marseille Tonight (Thursday, 20:00) This move could end with the World Cup for teams.

When he reached the Tigers, Giniak was at his peak: he was 29, the Marseille main star, a regular member of the tricolor squad (seven goals in 36 appearances between 2009 and 2016). In the 2014/15 season, his last in Marseille, he scored 21 league goals. He had a lot more to give on the big stages. Then, like out of nowhere – Mexico. Names of his size or even bigger have landed in the local league in the past, but it was just a sort of farewell round from his career in a sort of exotic world column. Osbio and Pep Guardiola are two examples. Giniak may not have been a superstar, but he was definitely a top-tier player in the French league, and he was in full swing.

It’s true that the Mexican league is not a small league, certainly if we go a little further with the comparison we started with it against our Premier League. It is considered the strongest league in North America and one of the strongest in the whole of America (as opposed to the Israeli league which is considered only the sixth in Europe, as is well known). According to Concup’s data, in terms of the number of spectators who come to the games, this is the fourth league in the world after the Bundesliga, the Premier League and La Liga, with an average of more than 25,000 fans per game. Still, Mexico.

The year of football in Mexico is divided into two tournaments, or two seasons: the Apertura which begins in summer and the Clausura which begins in winter. Each of them is divided into a regular season in which 18 teams participate and another playoff in the knockout method to which eight qualifiers in total. In the season before the arrival of Giniak, Tigers finished the regular season in first place and saw itself as a leading candidate to win its second championship in four years, but was already eliminated in the first round of the playoffs by Santos Laguna. This failure has led club leaders to the realization that if they really want to establish themselves at the top of Mexican football and continue to advance from there, a leap forward is needed. Giniak was marked as a bouncer, especially given the fact that his arrival was on a free transfer – and they could not have been more right about him.

Already when he arrived he helped the team reach the 2015 Libertadores final where they lost to the great River Plate. The following season was already over with the Aperture Championship, and Zeniac’s special feature was his goals in Money Time. He is considered a “Mr. Playoff.” That season he scored 11 goals in the regular season and in the playoffs passed them the first-round obstacle with a goal in each of the two quarter-final games against Chipas. In the final against Pumas he again scored in both games and added another goal in the penalty shootout that landed the dramatic championship for his team. And this is how it has continued to look since: more Aperture championships in 2016 and 2017, the Clausura championship in 2019, and in 2020 winning the Concup Champions League (after three losses in the factory final in four years), which also gave the team its place in the current tournament.

And to finish off the last season, he also managed to enter the list of 11 candidates for the FIFA goal of the season in the name of Franz Puskas, with a rare number. And maybe the word “rare” is not exactly appropriate, because the truth is that another feature Of Giniak since arriving in Mexico is a simply insane goal scoring, and not one that can be attributed to the weakness of the rivalry, but a performance that even after a few views you are still convinced that no goalkeeper and defense in the world were able to stop.Another kicks, distance bombs for connections, slaloms, ch Beautiful and endings from impossible angles – Giniak scores with every method and technique invented – and also some that were not sure before. .

And how did the Tigers reach the final against Bayern Munich? Then there was a pair of Ziniak in a 1-2 win over Asian representative South Korea Olsen; Then, his small penalty against Brazilian Palmeiras who was the favorite to meet the Bavarians in the final, gave the Tigers 0-1. Thus, at the age of 35 and after a six-year tour far from the center of the stage, Giniak returned to fight against a European empire, against a European champion, for a prestigious title.

His international career was supposed to look different. His debut in the French national team uniform was when he was 23. He then came on as a substitute in the 69th minute of the game against Lithuania in the home leg of the 2010 World Cup qualifiers, and cooked Frank Ribery the only goal of the game. Maybe it was the karma of Henry’s hand touch in the playoffs against Ireland, and maybe the material fatigue, but Giniak, who was called up to the final squad for that World Cup and partnered in the three home stage games, was part of one of the most embarrassing French relegations ever after a 2-1 loss to South Africa.

Since 2016 Giniak has not been called up to the team. That is, he was called up to the flag after the departure of League 1 in favor of the possibility of becoming a legend in Mexico, and was part of the team that qualified for the Euro 2016 final, a tournament it hosted. But then, in the final against Portugal, came the moment that probably marked the end. Giniak, who has been a partner in six of the tournament’s seven games, came off the bench in place of Olivia Giroud, and in the final minute before the game went into extra time, his big operation inside the extension ended in a flat kick to the goal. The ball had to go just a few millimeters to the right to continue from the crossbar into the net, but it hit the near post, rolled across the goal and was sent off. Then came Adar, Ronaldo’s replacement in that game, and gave the Portuguese the title. This was Giniak’s last chance to become a national hero.

The way he has acclimatized to Mexico, including very rapid Spanish learning, off-field social involvement and generally an active “I am here for the long term” approach from the first moment, brings him closer to this status precisely in the country where he plays as a foreigner. Tonight he wants to amaze with the Tigers and make a lot of very proud Mexicans.