The French striker lifted Tigres into the Liga MX semifinals, and his continued success could pave the way for more splashy Liga MX arrivals in the future, writes Jon Arnold.

'Golazo' is one of those Spanish words that has filtered into the American vernacular. Translating, simply enough, to 'awesome goal.' It gets overused, with broadcasters upgrading nearly every gol to a golazo at the slightest hint of invention or a higher-than-average degree of difficulty. Both goals Andre-Pierre Gignac scored in Tigres' two-legged playoff victory against Chiapas, though, were very fitting of the term.

His opener in the first leg was one of the finest goals scored in Liga MX this season, running toward the top of the box to get back onside, leaping and contorting his body to launch an overhead scissor in for a stunning opener.

Gignac is no one-hit wonder, though. He scored Saturday in Chiapas' Estadio Víctor Manuel Reyna, where the host Jaguares had not lost during the entire Apertura, on a thunderous strike. Jurgen Damm played in a long pass from the right wing that Rafael Sobis put into Gignac's path. The Frenchman blasted the ball past Chiapas goalkeeper Oscar Jimenez to lift Tigres into the Liga MX semifinals against Toluca.

He also had a sterling regular season. Though he eventually was beaten to the Golden Boot, his 11 goals during the 17-match Apertura were good enough for fifth in the league. Tigres spent big this summer, bringing in Gignac but also shelling out for Mexican wingers Damm and Javier Aquino. The general thought from Mexican clubs is that foreign players who don't come from Mexico or South America will struggle to adapt to the Mexican culture and game.

Gignac may be the exception in this case, but he also could show that with the right mentality there's no reason a talented European player can succeed despite some of the idiosyncrasies of the Mexican league. He turned up to one of the country's most cosmopolitan cities already speaking Spanish and hit the ground running. He and his family have shown a great willingness to be a part of the community surrounding the team, and his comfort off the pitch has manifested itself on the field.

Gignac also has been a shining example against the thought that a move to North America is the end of a career for a European star. The 29-year-old was called back into the French national team and scored in the friendly against Germany. Terrorist attacks that targeted that match rightly overshadowed what happened on the pitch, but Gignac's celebration that involved showing a Tigres' fan group's hand signal didn't escape attention in Mexico. It was just another sign of the mutual love Tigres' newest icon and the club supporters have for each other.

Strangely, Gignac shares a locker room with an example to the opposite in Nigerian forward Ikechukwu Uche. Uche has had a very poor loan spell with Tigres, marred by injury and hurt by other summer arrivals' successes. The fact that Uche's loan didn't work out is a fact of the game, though. Some transfers will not pay off, and Tigres relatively low-risk move to get the 31-year-old on loan involved little outlay, and little harm will be done when he returns to Europe. He doesn't seem too bothered, tweeting messages of congratulations to Gignac and the rest of his teammates in both English and Spanish.

There are other players like Gignac out there, perhaps not as total of a package as he is, but excellent players looking for a new challenge. Liga MX team's foreign player spots are increasingly filled by Argentines, Brazilians or Colombians seen as plug-and-play options, but the right team will benefit from finding more players from France, Germany or even the United States.

Meanwhile, Tigres keep benefiting from Gignac, with the Frenchman set to lead the line against Toluca when the semifinals begin this week.