Olivier Giroud is in the official Serie A team of the week this time and is ESPN's Moment of The Weekend...and it's absolutely not for anything you'd expect Olivier Giroud to do on a football pitch.
First, the context
Genoa vs AC Milan was pottering on along to a decent if uneventful draw when Yunus Musah swung in a threatening cross into the general area of the box a defending team hates to see it land in. The clock reads 86:35 when substitute Christian Pulisic pulls it out of the air and turns - the ball bouncing right where he wants it to - and smacks a shot into the bottom corner. Right next to him, Olivier Giroud can't quite believe what he's seen (the turn was truly magical) and he's one of the first to mob Pulisic in celebration.
Suddenly, the kitchen sink's being thrown at the Milan goal. They hold strong... till 95:30 (seven minutes added time). Genoa's Caleb Ekuban is off chasing a long punt and he outpaces Milan's defence easily. At the edge of the box, the ball takes a massive bounce and as Ekuban readies to receive it and try something with it, his face is met by Milan goalkeeper Mike Maignan's knee. Maignan, knowing he couldn't handle the ball there, was trying to get the leverage he needed to jump and head the ball away; but his knee was dangerously high and Ekuban was flattened.
Olivier Giroud became AC Milan's keeper after Mike Maignan was sent off with a red card.
He then made a MASSIVE save to see out AC Milan's 1-0 win and send them to the top of the Serie A table 😱 pic.twitter.com/L9smHBrqMy
- ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) October 7, 2023
He immediately bounced up and got a clean header away against Albert Gudmundsson to keep the ball away from the Milan goal before the referee realised the seriousness of the situation and called a halt to play.
As Ekuban was being attended to, VAR got involved - first for a potential red card to Maignan for Denial Of Goal Scoring Opportunity (DOGSO) and then for dangerous play. After two and a half minutes - and a trip to the VAR screen - the referee made the obvious decision, sending Maignan off. With no subs left to make, Milan could do but one thing:
Up step, Goalkeeper Giroud
The sight of France's World Cup-winning striker, scorer of 273 career club goals, donning gloves was remarkable enough, but what he did with it was truly spectacular. In theory, it made sense, kind of. He was tall, he was athletic, and he had a good leap: Arsene Wenger had once hinted at using him in goal at Arsenal if the need ever arose (it never did in his time at the club).
The first thing Giroud did in the Milan goal, though, was watch the ball cannon off the crossbar as Gudmundsson's free-kick (from the Ekuban foul) deflected off the wall and bounced onto it. Then he saw Fikayo Tomori head away a dangerous-looking header in front of him and even more drama as Josep Martinez, Genoa keeper, fouled Tomori inside the Milan box to earn a second yellow card.
The designated injury time had been seven minutes, but by now we were well into the 12th. And it still wasn't done, because goalkeeper Giroud had to er...goal keep.
In the 14th minute of added time, that's exactly what he did. Brilliantly. George Puscas was sent clean through on goal and as his header bounced neatly in front of him, he looked very likely to take a shot at goal... till Giroud took flight, diving horizontally, punching at the ball, and then immediately getting on his feet to smother the rebound. It was a piece of proactive goalkeeping that'd have made Maignan proud. And it was with the ball in Giroud's hands that the referee blew his final whistle.
Now it was his turn to be mobbed by teammates as everyone jumped on him, his save ensuring the three points went to Milan and they would go into the international break atop Serie A, two points ahead of Inter.
Hours after the match, both Milan and France had updated their squad lists on their official handles. Instead of the regular three, they both had four goalkeepers. The fourth? The man who Serie A officially called their goalkeeper of the week: Olivier Giroud.