France international and club legend has four important games to play before leaving for MLS in the summer
Antoine Griezmann is not everyone’s favourite player. It is impossible to be everyone’s favourite player. Yet at some point Griezmann was in fact everyone’s favourite player.
Wanted at Bayern Munich, at Barcelona, at Manchester United, at Chelsea, and of course at Atletico Madrid where he actually was, the France international with a propensity for variegated hair styling ended up playing for Barcelona briefly, three years from 2019 to 2022, before returning to the Spanish capital where he has now become the highest goalscorer in the club’s history with 211 goals in his nine years there.
Griezmann is also a very likeable footballer, an attractive man, 5 ft 9 in with a well-defined jawline, charming eyes and a cool, collected personality, like Legolas in a tracksuit visiting a football stadium. At 35 now, one of the greatest players of his generation has won the World Cup with France but has few honours to count at club level.
There was a Europa League trophy with Atletico in 2018, the Uefa Super Cup the same year, and the Copa del Rey with Barcelona in 2021, but a player who joined Atletico in 2014 and is one of the most compelling figures in their modern history, a living, walking emblem of the club, has not shared the heights of their success over the past decade or so. He joined the club the summer after they had won La Liga in 2014, and he failed to win it with them when they managed the feat again in 2021, having moved to Barcelona in that period.
Tomorrow on our minds 💭 pic.twitter.com/8U2DqKObws
— Atlético de Madrid (@atletienglish) April 17, 2026
But now he is here, and so are Atleti, on the cusp of something great. In front of them over the next two months are four important games: one domestic final and three huge European games.
First a Copa del Rey final on Saturday against Real Sociedad, and then a Champions League semi-final against Arsenal. And – if they win that – a final against Paris Saint-Germain or Bayern Munich. (It should be a walk in the park, should it not?)
This is the last chance Griezmann will have to tangibly be one of the greats, at least at club level. This is his swan song. The forward will leave Atleti again at the end of the season, this time for good, to join Orlando City in Major League Soccer as he winds down his career. Win the Copa del Rey and triumph in Europe and he will have bowed out on the highest of highs.
The road to this point has not been easy. Atletico had to beat Barcelona to reach the domestic final, a 4-0 demolition at the Metropolitano, and then had to hang on at Camp Nou as Barcelona surged back 3-0, falling short of an incredible comeback by just a single goal. And in the Champions League they beat Barcelona again in the quarter-final to secure a place in the semis for only the first time since 2017.
Let’s write a new story ❤️🤍 pic.twitter.com/3DHoJKb3vI
— Atlético de Madrid (@atletienglish) April 17, 2026
But this is now what Atletico have become. A really good football team. In the past they were ridiculed for being managed by an Argentine with an Italian mafia-style personality, a fondness for all-black suits and shirts, and a footballing philosophy that involves bus parking, eye gouging, and the so-called haram-style football that watching it feels like slowly having your eyelashes pulled off one at a time with a pair of tweezers.
It turns out now they might actually be fun to watch. Julian Alvarez is a really good player. Ademola Lookman has brought more attacking flair. Marcos Llorente plays like he has four lungs and retires after every game to a Gothic castle to sleep in a container matted with Transylvanian soil. Griezmann is also in great shape. One of the most gifted players in the world has retained his brilliance on the ball, but he is also utterly dedicated and can now scent a grand finish ahead, even if he won’t readily admit it.
“I’m soaking it all in and enjoying it a lot,” Griezmann said. “I’m excited, eager, and happy. I’m not thinking about whether this is my last final with Atleti. I’m just focused on the fact that it’s a very important match, a final that very few players get to experience.”
An interesting angle to the story is that Griezmann will have to win on Saturday against Sociedad, where he came through the academy and began his La Liga career before joining Atletico. “I’m trying not to think too much about it because I get very emotional, and I want to stay fresh for the match,” said Griezmann. “But I owe [Sociedad] a lot. They opened doors for me that were closed in France.”
This might be it, the opening salvo of a quadripartite act to enrich a club’s history and embellish its greatest player. It can end in the best way possible for Griezmann, but of course no one is under any illusions about how hard this final lap will be.
