Antoine Griezmann's Farewell: A Last Chance at UEFA Champions League Glory
Antoine Griezmann has known this moment was coming. Nearly 500 games, more than 200 goals, two separate spells, countless nights under the Calderón and the Metropolitano lights – and now, one last tilt at the one trophy that still keeps him awake.
This summer, the 35-year-old will swap Atlético de Madrid for Orlando City in Major League Soccer. Before he goes, he has unfinished business in the UEFA Champions League.
A goodbye written in floodlights
Ninety-six of his Atlético appearances have come in this competition. At least two more await, three if Atleti can find a way past Arsenal in their upcoming semi-final. For a player who has carried the club’s European hopes for the best part of a decade, it feels fitting that his farewell is framed by the Champions League anthem.
Griezmann is now the fourth Frenchman to reach 100 games in the competition, a journey that began far from Madrid, in San Sebastián. Real Sociedad handed him his debut in 2009 and, four years later, his first taste of the Champions League.
They did more than that. They took in a 14-year-old boy at a vulnerable time and turned him into a professional.
“They opened their doors to me at what was a difficult time for me when I was 14,” he recalls. “I said that when I left La Real I wouldn’t feel the same about any other club.”
He meant it. Then he met Atlético.
Falling in love twice
When he crossed the country in 2014, the move hurt. La Real was home. Yet the connection with Atleti and its people hit him with unexpected force.
“When I joined, I felt the same feeling twice over,” he says. “The word would be something way beyond love.
“Love for the club’s colours, the club’s badge and love for football, because the fans love football, and love for hard work – I think that’s why I quickly bonded with the club and its fans.”
The bond was emotional. The impact was brutal.
Twenty-two league goals in his first Liga season, level with Neymar and behind only the two giants of the era. A Spanish Super Cup. A run to the Champions League quarter-finals. He arrived as an exciting forward; he became a star.
The next campaign, he went up another level. Player of the season in Spain. Third in the 2016 Ballon d'Or. And in Europe, closer to immortality than he has ever been.
Milan, the scar that never quite closed
In 2015/16, Griezmann started all 13 of Atlético’s Champions League matches, scoring seven times as Diego Simeone’s side bulldozed their way to the final in Milan. Ninety minutes, extra time and penalties against Real Madrid stood between Atleti and their holy grail.
It slipped away. Again.
The match finished 1-1. The shoot-out went Madrid’s way. Yet for Griezmann, one moment still cuts deeper than the rest: the 48th minute, a penalty, the ball crashing against the crossbar.
“It’s not something I think about every day, but whenever we talk about the Champions League with friends or team-mates, that moment always comes up, 2016, the penalty,” he admits.
The miss has followed him through the years. It has not broken him. It has driven him.
“It would heal a very deep wound. The only way to get over it would be to win it this year.”
That is the size of the mission as he enters his final European weeks in red and white: not just to win the Champions League, but to rewrite the defining chapter of his Atlético story.
Simeone and Griezmann: a shared obsession
If Griezmann’s career in Madrid has a constant, it is Diego Simeone. The Argentinian arrived as coach in 2011 and has overseen every second of the Frenchman’s Rojiblanco life: his explosive first spell, the controversial move to Barcelona in 2019, the tentative return on loan in 2021, and the veteran maestro now orchestrating games from deeper positions.
Simeone took the raw, electric forward of 2014 and refined him into one of Europe’s most complete attackers. Then, when Griezmann came back older and with more miles in his legs, he remodelled him again – this time into the cerebral leader of Atleti’s press and the brain of their attack.
“I think ultimately he’s given me everything and I’ve given him everything,” Griezmann says. “I enjoy and have enjoyed having him. I know that beyond my career I’ll have a friend in him, a former coach and we’ll always be really close.”
Together, they have lifted the UEFA Europa League and the UEFA Super Cup in 2018. Together, they have twice stood on the brink of European supremacy and watched it slip away. The Champions League is the one line missing from a partnership that has reshaped Atlético’s modern history.
Now, as Simeone plots one more run at the title that has tormented him since Lisbon and Milan, Griezmann remains central to the plan.
The veteran playmaker, still pulling strings
Age has changed him, but it has not dimmed the magic. In this season’s knockout phase, Griezmann has formed a sharp understanding with Julián Álvarez, starting alongside the Argentinian in each of Atleti’s last four Champions League ties.
The goal against Tottenham in the round of 16 summed up the new Griezmann perfectly. Not the sprinting winger of a decade ago, but the schemer, the one who sees the pass half a second earlier than everyone else. A sublime assist, weighted and timed to perfection, for his strike partner to finish.
“I think I prefer a nice assist rather than being just one-on-one with the goalkeeper,” he says. “I’m more of a one-touch or two-touch player, not very flashy, but I try to create time for my team-mates and surprise the opponent. That’s what happened against Tottenham.”
This is the version of Griezmann that will go to Orlando: the thinker, the connector, the player who has learned to influence games with economy rather than explosion. Before MLS gets him, Europe must deal with him one last time.
He leaves knowing his place in Atlético folklore is secure. The question now is simple, and enormous: does he depart as a club legend, or as the man who finally carried Atleti to the top of Europe?
