The modern football world is an eternal confrontation between two giants, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. However, they have a serious competitor, which in the coming years can move them off the podium. This is the French striker Antoine Griezmann, who over the past two years has turned from an unknown French guy into a world star. How did he come this way? This is exactly what you will learn from this article, which will describe in detail what transfers and achievements made the career of a football player, whose name is Antoine Griezmann.
early years
In some cases, talented football players are noticed at the age of 18 or 19, they come to top clubs at such an early age and open up there. However, Antoine Griezmann took a very different path. He was born on March 21, 1991 in France, where at the age of six he began to seriously engage in football. At six, Antoine entered the football academy of his hometown of Macon. The club to which this academy belonged shared the name directly with the city itself.
For a long time he grew up and trained there, until in 2005 he was noticed by scouts from the Spanish club Real Sociedad. They immediately saw a future star in a 14-year-old boy, so he soon moved to Spain, where he began to train intensively. It was a real success, because all the views in more or less serious clubs ended in failure due to the modest complexion of the young football player - he was extremely short, thin and even painful. Therefore, all the clubs refused him, and only in 2005, luck turned to face Antoine.
In the new club, he began to train hard and for four years he got in very good shape. As a result, Real offered him a professional contract, which 18-year-old Antoine Griezmann happily signed.
First club
Today everyone knows who Antoine Griezmann is. Photos of this football player can be seen in all sports magazines, he has already entered his name in history and may soon become one of the strongest players of our time. But back in 2009, he was not even considered a promising one. Real Sociedad was listed as one of the weakest clubs that periodically left the top division, so Antoine had enough playing practice - already in his first season the young striker played as many as forty matches, scoring six goals in them.
In subsequent seasons, he gradually improved his productivity, scoring more and more goals each time. In his fourth year, he was marked by eleven goals, but the fifth turning point was the real turning point. The 22-year-old Frenchman “pinned” twenty goals, which attracted the attention of some strong European clubs, including Atletico Madrid, which at that time began its ascent from the usual “middle peasant” to one of the strongest clubs in Spain as well and in the world. And in many ways this success “Atletico” is grateful to Griezmann, who literally transformed the club’s attacking game.
Going to Atletico
The great football player Antoine Griezmann in 2014 was already known to so many, and most football fans realized that the Madrid club was buying a real pearl of football. Therefore, an impressive waste of thirty million euros was considered acceptable. And Griezmann quickly began to prove that he was worth the money that paid for him. In his first season for Atletico, he played in 53 matches, scoring 25 goals. But the real masterpiece in his performance was the 15/16 season, where he scored 32 goals, including 7 in the Champions League, where the Madrid club reached the final, but lost to their main rival, Real Madrid. However, it is worthwhile to understand how young Antoine Griezmann is still, whose biography is set out in the article. Ahead of him - great accomplishments.
Future
As for the future of this player, at the moment he sees himself only in the T-shirt “Atletico”. A lot of clubs wanted to get him into their ranks, but he refused absolutely everything. Perhaps in time he will change his mind, but today he has a contract valid until 2021 with the Madrid club, which he is not going to break.
Team appearances
Of particular note is how Griezmann stands for the French team. Despite the fact that he moved to Spain at the age of 14, Antoine decided to protect the colors of his homeland. He played for France’s youth teams of different ages until he received an invitation to the main team. Surprisingly, this event happened only in 2014, just before Antoine moved to Atlético. He spent his debut game in March of that year, it was a friendly match against the Dutch team, in which the French won 2-0. Griezmann scored the first goal a couple of months later in a friendly match against the national team of Paraguay, and then went to the World Cup, where he participated in all five matches, and basically went out in three of them, including the quarterfinal match, in which the French lost to the Germans.
But Antoine achieved the highest success at the last European Championship in 2016, which became home for the French. There he scored to the Albanians in the group stage, scored a double against the Irish in the 1/8 finals, scored a goal and gave two assists in the quarterfinals with the Icelanders, and also scored a double in the semifinals with the Germans. And only in the final, he could not score, and his team eventually lost to the Portuguese in stoppage time. Antoine Griezmann scored six goals at the tournament, beating all previous scorers, except his compatriot Michel Platini, becoming the second most successful player in the history of European championships.
Achievements
Together with his first club in 2010, Griezmann won the championship in the second league of Spain, while with Atlético he has so far only submitted to the Spanish Super Cup, and the Champions League final can be added to the asset. Antoine Griezmann, whose personal life is not much disclosed (it is only known that he has a girlfriend, and in April this year the couple had his first child), leads a very active sports life, and he really has every chance to become one of the best, if not the best player on the planet.