Antoine Griezmann’s Last Dance Aiming To Make Atlético Madrid History

BARCELONA, SPAIN - AUGUST 19: Antoine Griezmann of Real Sociedad looks on during the La Liga match between FC Barcelona and Real Sociedad de Futbol at Camp Nou on August 19, 2012 in Barcelona, Spain. (Photo by David Ramos/Getty Images)

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In Seville on Friday, the day before the final, Griezmann was asked directly about the emotional weight of facing the club that raised him. “I owe them a lot,” he admitted. “They opened doors for me that others in France didn’t, so it’s a special match, but I’m not thinking too much about it otherwise I get too emotional, and I don’t want that”.

That discipline, the deliberate refusal to let sentiment run ahead of preparation, captures something real about him. For supporters who lived through his 2019 exit from Atlético Madrid, the repair has been real but hard-won. Jeremy Beren, editor of Into the Calderón, the leading English-language Atlético Madrid site, admits he had no intention of forgiving Griezmann when he left. “Griezmann had flirted with an exit for years, and I was one of many supporters who interpreted these flirtations as disrespectful to the club that gave him a platform to contend for a Ballon d’Or,” Beren says. “I was looking forward to seeing Atleti forge a new identity without him.”

Redemption and Reinvention

Griezmann is no longer the striker who finished third in the 2016 Ballon d'Or, who fired France to a World Cup with his brain and his body running at full speed. That version of the player is gone and he knows it. What has replaced him is something different, and in some ways more interesting.

Over the past two seasons he evolved into a connective presence rather than a finishing one, the player Diego Simeone could trust to hold shape, circulate possession intelligently, and manufacture chances for Julián Álvarez and Ademola Lookman. Tactical analysis from this season places him in the 98th percentile among La Liga forwards for received passes per 90, and the 94th for dangerous passes created. The goals, when they come, arrive in moments: off the bench, on deadline, against the run of play.

That adaptation has not been painless. For much of the 2025/26 season he started from the bench, and the club’s summer arrivals, Álex Baena, Thiago Almada, Nicolás González, confirmed that the hierarchy had shifted, even if none of the trio has been able to displace him. Simeone has continued to trust him, but the minutes have come in smaller doses. When asked in Friday’s press conference whether he was still enjoying his final season, Griezmann’s answer cut to something honest. “I realize that I am when I’m on the field, playing, enjoying myself, I’m enjoying every message from the coach , I take it to heart,” he reflected.

For Beren, the moment the relationship with supporters shifted came not at the beginning of this season but in October 2022, after a 1-0 win over Athletic Club. “Griezmann scored the only goal and publicly apologized in a post-match interview,” he says. “I figured that enough was enough.” What has followed since, and particularly this season, has deepened that reassessment. “He easily could have refused that request as the club’s all-time top scorer and left for the United States last summer,” Beren says. “But instead he entered this season with renewed commitment, and maybe more humility than ever, Simeone — and soccer — is rewarding him now.”

It is a quieter kind of importance, and in a Copa del Rey final, where tempo slows and individual moments carry disproportionate weight, the player who has learned to wait and then act at full intensity is exactly the type who wins things.

Griezmann celebrates winning the Copa del Rey with Barcelona in 2021.

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Facing Real Sociedad in Seville

Real Sociedad are not here by accident. Under Pellegrino Matarazzo, the New Jersey-born coach who took charge in December after a difficult start to the season, they have steadied and found a competition that suits their quality. Mikel Oyarzabal leads the attack, a player with a record for delivering in finals. He scored the only goal of the 2021 Copa del Rey final and his late effort in the 2024 European Championship final beat England to give Spain the trophy.

Griezmann named Gonçalo Guedes as the player Atlético need to be most wary of. “Since the new coach arrived, they’ve changed quite a bit, with fast play, through balls. I’m really enjoying Guedes’ season, I’d already seen him at Valencia, and now you can see him enjoying himself,” he analyzed.

The two sides have met twice under Matarazzo: 1-1 at in a draw in San Sebastián, then a 3-2 win at home for Atlético. Atlético have won 21 of 34 meetings between the clubs in recent years. But there is also a historical footnote La Real fans will have noted: the only previous Copa del Rey final between these two clubs came in 1987, when Real Sociedad won on penalties. Atlético would prefer that precedent does not repeat.

A Team Effort

Part of what gives Atlético’s run to this final its particular texture is the state of the squad around Griezmann. In the days before Seville, he described a locker room with no friction, no jostling for position, no ego displacement , the kind of environment that tends to produce things in one-off matches. “I saw the team really fired up, calm, and happy, those who play and those who don’t play as muc, there’s no complaints, no egos getting in the way,” Griezmann said on Friday. “We’ll be giving it our all to play a great game and win the Copa for ourselves. This locker room deserves it.”

The timing matters. Atlético beat Barcelona in the Champions League quarterfinals on Tuesday, a result that sent the Metropolitano into something approaching collective disbelief. That energy, Griezmann suggested, had not dissipated. “The fact that we made it to the semifinals makes you forget all the effort and fatigue,” he insisted. “I sense that everyone is very confident, happy, and eager to train and compete.”

The Missing Trophy

The Copa del Rey sits in an awkward position in Griezmann’s otherwise stacked career. He won one at Barcelona in 2021, in circumstances that pleased nobody as he was on loan back at Atlético a few months later, despite scoring the first goal in a 4-0 win over Athletic Club behind closed doors in the final.

A winner’s medal earned in Atlético red and white, against the club that first believed in him, would mean something different entirely. For Beren, the Copa is not merely sentimental, it is a matter of historical record. “Griezmann’s status as an Atleti legend is secured,” he says, “although the debate is open as to where he places on that list.” Being the club’s all-time top scorer without a major domestic title to show for it, Beren argues, is an anomaly that Saturday night has a chance to resolve. Griezmann has scored five goals in this Copa del Rey campaign, more than any other Atlético player, which means whatever the outcome, his fingerprints are on the run.

Griezmann acknowledged the supporters on Friday, pointedly, as the last thing he said before leaving the room. “I want to thank them for everything they’ve given us this year and continue to give us, they’re always a source of motivation in tough moments,” he said. “We saw it on Tuesday, when Barça was pressing us, they were right behind us, cheering us on.”

What Comes Next

What comes next, the move to Orlando, the MLS designated player contract, the Florida heat, is a different story. Orlando City signed Griezmann in March, and the club has been unequivocal about the terms of the deal. Kyle Foley, who covers Orlando City for the Orlando Sentinel, says the front office is not framing this as a profile play. “The primary goal is that Griezmann will help them win a trophy,” Foley says. “They remain adamant they’re still a contender — and Griezmann is a missing piece, not a rebranding exercise.”

ORLANDO, FLORIDA - MARCH 23: French footballer Antoine Griezmann poses for pictures during his presentation at Orlando City SC at Exploria Stadium on March 23, 2026 in Orlando, Florida. Griezmann will leave Atletico Madrid to join Orlando City SC on July 2026 at the end of the European season. (Photo by Mark Thorstenson - Orlando City/MLS via Getty Images)

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For context, Orlando City fans and the front office were aligned when it became clear Griezmann would honor his Atlético commitments rather than move to MLS early. “They respect his desire to stay with Atlético and help them win trophies,” Foley says. “The loyalty went over well locally.” The most common refrain, he says, has been some version of: “I can’t believe he wants to leave Atlético for this mess.”

He will arrive in July as the biggest name in the league’s current intake. The commercial precedents at Orlando, ex-Real Madrid and Milan star Kaká, then former Manchester United winger Nani, suggest an impact on ticket sales and visibility, though Foley cautions that partnerships take time to materialize and nothing new has been tied up yet around the signing. The real commercial story will be a 2027 conversation.

But MLS is an epilogue. Seville is where the main text ends. When Antoine Griezmann was a teenager lodging with a scout in a country whose language he did not speak, eating dinner with a stranger and training each evening in the dark, the Copa del Rey was already part of his career. It was where he made his debut, a substitute in a 2-0 defeat, anonymous and raw. His career has changed his image significantly since then, from ‘The Little Prince’ to a traitor and back again, Saturday night gives him the chance to decide what the final image of his Atlético Madrid career is.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com