SUMMARY
- Antoine Griezmann was a threat to the duopoly of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo in La Liga.
- The Frenchman has achieved a lot of unique feats, unlike his competitors.
Perhaps the beauty of soccer lies in praising its unsung heroes. These players do a very thankless job and, hence, go unnoticed. But such players are actually the most influential on the soccer pitch and possess the ability to turn age on its head. Antoine Griezmann is one such player whose prowess has been overlooked for quite some time now.
Happy Birthday to Antoine Griezmann who turns 33 today.🎉 pic.twitter.com/Rxhn17JSnM
— Immaculate (@ImmaculateUTD) March 21, 2024
Even after achieving so much in his career, we rarely see soccer fans counting him on the list of elite players. This is a clear injustice to the 33-year-old’s career who is arguably the most important player for both Atletico Madrid and the France national team.
Antoine Griezmann has had a better career than some of his peers
The Frenchman had once bizarrely commented that he was dining at the same table as Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi in 2018. While that comment did invite some criticism, Griezmann surely has a point in this matter.
During his career at Atletico Madrid, the Frenchman has constantly threatened the dominance of both CR7 and Messi. Besides this fact, some fans believe that certain players such as Kevin De Bruyne, Mohamed Salah, and Eden Hazard have bettered the 33-year-old, which is false to a certain degree.
Antoine Griezmann becomes Atletico Madrid’s all-time top scorer with 174 goals ⚽️🔥 pic.twitter.com/sPTpQKm9Ka
— Mail Sport (@MailSport) January 10, 2024
While the players above are great in their own regard, it must be noted how Griezmann has developed in his career. Antoine Griezmann rose to fame at Real Sociedad, where he primarily played as a winger.
He wasn’t always the visionary second striker with the great defensive awareness that he is now. Instead, he was a player who stayed wide and posed little goal threat.
He then had to redefine his role at Atletico Madrid when he joined the club in 2014. Diego Simeone and his no-nonsense coaching style meant that the 2018 FIFA World Cup winner could no longer enjoy the privileges he did at Sociedad.
Simeone transformed Grizou into a goal-scoring beast who could score from any angle he wanted. The Argentine also discovered the creative talent inside him, and now Antoine Griezmann has become one of the most elite passers of the soccer ball in the world.
Perhaps it is this fact that separates him from the league of players such as KDB, Salah, and Hazard. Griezmann had outperformed everybody and, to some extent, his own expectations with his spectacular career.
The Frenchman has become the highest goalscorer at Atletico Madrid, breaking Luis Aragones’ record of 173 goals. And what better way to break the record than to score a fantastic goal against bitter rivals Real Madrid?
Griezmann has the titles to back his claims to be called arguably the 3rd best player of his generation. The player has won a FIFA World Cup, a Europa League, a Nations League, and a UEFA Super Cup, among many other titles.
Individually too, the Frenchman has won the Golden Boot and the Golden Ball in the UEFA Euro 2016 and the Silver Boot and Bronze Ball at the 2018 World Cup. It is also worth noting that he has spent the majority of his career at Atletico Madrid, a club that rarely has a shot at winning trophies.
Antoine Griezmann was rightfully adjudged the La Liga player of the season twice, with the first one coming in the era of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi in 2016. This is something that legends of the league such as Neymar Jr. and Luis Suarez, who played in the same era as Grizou, haven’t been able to do.
Griezmann has finished on the Ballon d’Or podium twice in the last 10 years, while players like Hazard, De Bruyne, and Salah, with whom the 33-year-old is often compared, have achieved the feat cumulatively once.
Despite his achievements, it certainly feels strange that Antoine Griezmann has still not received the credit he deserves. We have come up with some unfortunate reasons for our research that might explain the phenomenon better.
The French soccer player has been very unlucky throughout his career
One thing where his competitors have certainly eclipsed the Frenchman is with their career decisions. Antoine Griezmann has made some terrible decisions in his career that have undermined his value in the game.
Besides this, the 33-year-old has been terribly unlucky in some instances, which has cost him dearly. The culmination of both of these factors has meant that Antoine Griezmann has still gone quite under the radar amongst fans.
The Frenchman should not have gone to FC Barcelona in the first place. The move was never going to be a success, as his attributes never matched with that of the Catalan club. Griezmann had played under the very defensive-minded approach of Diego Simeone, and the transition to free-flowing Barca-esque soccer was never going to be a smooth one.
And, given his hefty fine of over $100 million meant that the Catalan fans weren’t going to be patient with him at all. Moreover, his transfer to FC Barcelona happened at a time when Lionel Messi was at the peak of his power. Both players liked to play deep and liked to have the ball all the time, which meant that Griezmann could not function according to his true potential.
📆 July 12, 2019:
Antoine Griezmann signs for Barcelona for €120m.📆 June 30, 2020:
Griezmann is subbed on in the 90th minute in a decisive match in the title race against Atlético.🗣 Quique Setién: “It is difficult to find a place for him without destabilizing the team” pic.twitter.com/6TpycHcvtG
— Football Tweet ⚽ (@Football__Tweet) July 1, 2020
Griezmann’s legacy suffered a great deal at FC Barcelona. It looked like the Frenchman had lost all his charm and confidence at FC Barcelona, where he was made to play on the wings.
His best season at the Catalan club came in the 20/21 season, when he had 33 goal contributions in 51 games, while he had been averaging close to 40 before leaving Atletico Madrid. Hence, the new generation fans have only seen a depleted version of the Frenchman, and often overlook the unbelievable prime that began in 2016.
Antoine Griezmann has twice come close to winning the prestigious Ballon d’Or. A case can be made in both the 2016 and 2018 Ballon d’Or snubs that the Frenchman was the worthy winner of the award.
In 2016, Griezmann had a fantastic Euro campaign with France and reached the UEFA Champions League final with Atletico. In 2018, the Frenchman won the World Cup and the Europa League, amongst many other trophies.
However, both times, he fell short of the greatness of Cristiano Ronaldo and Luka Modric, respectively. Antoine Griezmann also probably had the worst final exits in soccer history. He lost the 2015/16 UCL final to Real Madrid, where he also missed a penalty in regular time, while also being dominant in the 2022 FIFA World Cup Final, where he was substituted in the 71st minute.
Despite all this, Antoine Griezmann is truly one of the most underrated players of all time. His genius was proven by the fact that he again reinvented soccer after a terrible few years with FC Barcelona.
Grizou now plays even deeper and is excelling with his creative abilities on the pitch after rejoining Atleti in 2022. The Atletico Madrid player even played as a midfielder in the 2022 World Cup for France, where he finished the tournament as the joint-highest assist provider.
Indeed, his trophy cabinet is still shy of a UEFA Champions League and a La Liga title; however, trophies cannot really be the metric of a player’s success. We need to look at aspects such as fitness and longevity where Grizou has excelled, being largely injury-free throughout his career.
We feel the greatness of a player like Antoine Griezmann can only be truly valued when one ignores his numbers and enjoys watching his long diagonal passes. Grizou is one of the few people in soccer history who has no real weaknesses and is a soccer manager’s delight.
His tenacious efforts to track back all the way down to the pitch and his love for his club and country are things rarely present in modern-day soccer. An icon of the game, Antoine Griezmann is truly an under-appreciated gem of the beautiful game.