Atletico Madrid: Antoine Griezmann should stay
By Tom Bogert
Antoine Griezmann is at the best footballing situation at Atletico Madrid and should continue to reject offers from PSG, Chelsea and anyone else who comes.
Full disclaimer: I’m not in the business of telling someone not to accept more money if an offer comes in. It’s easy to tell someone to do the loyal, noble thing and leave money on the table when it’s not effecting your wallet.
But if he feels stable or if we pretend all things are equal, then Antoine Griezmann absolutely should not leave Atletico Madrid.
This comes after news broke via Griezmann’s agent that his client had rejected an offer from PSG in favor of an Atleti stay this summer, via ESPN FC.
Simply put, where else could there be a better situation for the Frenchman? In Madrid, he plays under a brilliant manager in a top-heavy-but-competitive league with a team that’s built around him. Griezmann is the first name in the teamsheet every week and the attacks funnel through him.
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Griezmann has scored 57 goals in 107 games in his two seasons in Madrid after moving from Real Sociedad. He’s stuck the landing at Atleti and has continued to sprint forward. The 25 year old is now earning a wider range of adulation after his class performances at the Euros from fans who mainly watch the Premier League and weren’t lucky enough to gaze upon Griezmann much during the season.
Atletico has had this brilliant record of churning out world class striker after world class striker, such as Fernando Torres, Falcao, Sergio Aguero, Diego Costa and now Griezmann.
If he were to leave, where would be a better situation for him in the pure footballing sense? Hint: There isn’t one.
Clubs like Real Madrid and Barcelona could catch his attention, but there’s no certainty that he’d be in the team every week. He might end up being superfluous anyway, sort of what’s happening to Arda Turan who is second choice behind Luis Suarez, Neymar and Lionel Messi.
PSG has been heavily rumored and as his agent revealed, Griezmann thought about it. They might be the best big club for him to land at. He’d land in an attacking trio with Edinson Cavani and Angel di Maria, filling a Zlatan Ibrahimovic sized chasm in the Parisian ground.
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But then he wouldn’t play any genuinely meaningful games outside of the Champions League and all of the pressure, expectations and notions of success or failure are pinned to a few games across Europe. PSG have subjugated the French league and made it a joke. They finished 31 points adrift of the next club. Where’s the fun in that?
Griezmann could kick it in the Premier League and he’d turn into one of the top players in the league, but there’s no certainty that he’ll hit the ground so smoothly like he has at Atleti.
Chelsea have been rumored to be interested in him but they signed Michy Batshuayi. Both Manchester clubs are always rumored to be in for any top player, and they always have the money to do so, but they’re more than stocked in the attacking department. Plus United and Chelsea aren’t in the Champions League and it’d be a travesty for someone like Griezmann to be missing out.
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For all of these reasons, the best footballing situation for Griezmann is Atletico Madrid and he should continue to hang on to the club for years to come. The club matches his ambitions and appear to have done construction on the notion of a “two team league” in Spain to permanently push Atleti’s name in the conversation to be a three team league.
That’s two more teams than France, at least.