BarcelonaFive minutes passed at midnight and Griezmann’s representatives still did not know whether the Frenchman would remain at Barça or not. “It simply came to our notice then. In the end everything could be sent at 23.59. For seconds ”they explain, admitting that, as the day had gone on, the best option was to see Antoine Griezmann return to Atlético de Madrid. “At some point we thought the operation could not be done. It was a very hard few minutes. They may have good salaries, but behind every player there is a family, a life. And we had three players waiting to know where they would live 24 hours later “, explains Griezmann’s environment. In the end, the carom could be closed in time. Saúl Ñiguez, half crying, was leaving for London to play for Chelsea. Antoine Griezmann returns to Atletico to raise his head after two tough years. And Luuk de Jong lands at the Camp Nou when, a few hours before, he could never have imagined that he would be a Barcelona player.
The Barça management had been trying to sell Griezmann for months. From the beginning, his name was a priority. “The inherited economic situation forces decisions like this. Griezmann is a great player, but he had a high and cheap salary, unlike others. And we needed to cut salaries and money. ” In the end, Barça will not be able to receive money as a transfer, although they will leave to Atlético on loan with a compulsory purchase option. Luckily for Barça, the money came yesterday from Ilaix and Emerson. And he saves a lot of salaries without Griezmann, the Frenchman who came to reign with Messi and who has never won the heart of Barcelona.
The Frenchman already landed badly there. In 2018, when he was signed by Barça, he decided to stay for another year at Atlético who had received a sanction that did not allow him to sign for a year. It was a gesture of love for a club that had given it its all, but it led to the enmity of much of Barcelona, which did not forgive him when he saw the video, called The decision, which he did to explain his future. A great lover of American sports, he was inspired by a similar video by LeBron James with the support of Cosmos, Piqué’s company. The defender, in fact, has been one of the best efforts to facilitate the player’s integration into Barça when he arrived at the Camp Nou in 2019. More than one player criticized him from behind, but over the months it won everyone’s heart. At Barça, everyone speaks well of Griezmann as a person. But the Frenchman has explained to his surroundings that it has been very difficult for him to adapt to Barça, because he landed in a locker room broken into clans, saddened by Liverpool’s defeat and at enmity with the management. “He was very impressed with everything he saw at Barça,” they explain. In two years he has seen an election, the president who arrested him, Messi’s bureaufax … everything. “It has not helped him to integrate, because he always performs better in human groups with a good atmosphere,” they say of him. And look, he tried, celebrating the goals with glitter, posting messages on Catalan networks and participating in charity campaigns.
The change of management turned everything upside down at Barça. Lionel Messi, who wanted to fold with Bartomeu, then wanted to stay with Laporta. Griezmann, on the other hand, understood that he might have to leave. Not because it was his decision, no. In the French environment, he did not like to find out in the press, or talking to third parties, that from the Barça sports directorate his name was offered in market operations. “It hurt Antoine,” they explain, when he discovered they were auctioning him off to try to fix the club’s dire financial situation. Griezmann, however, was determined to continue at Barça. But inside he was already beginning to appreciate the possibility of returning to Atlético once the club told him about this possibility. Even before he knew that Messi was leaving, the player already explained that his priority was to continue at the Camp Nou but that, if he had to leave, he only planned to return with Simeone.
The news of Messi’s farewell seemed to alter everything. Griezmann thought the club would no longer be interested in getting rid of him, because without the money enough money would already be saved and goals would be lost. The Frenchman assumed that it would be his turn to take a step forward, to be one of the leaders of the team. But they were the same days when the economic area of the club put on the table the need to continue selling footballers, because the economic forecasts for the future did not look good. Following the possibility of continuing to suffer serious losses in the 2022-23 season, Griezmann’s name was once again chosen to put him on the market. And he made it clear that the only destination had to be the Wanda. And said and done, although the player’s environment admits that they did not believe that this return would be possible until the last day of the market. It used to seem too complicated.
In the end, Griezmann with Barça won only one Cup, although he came to win the Champions League. He has scored 35 goals in 102 games, never finishing the step forward that everyone expected. The last memory will be him receiving a whistle against Getafe, when he already knew they wanted to send him to Madrid but it was thought that he would surely continue in Barcelona. Griezmann arrived in slow motion. And impromptu morning march.
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