Antoine Griezmann reveals Atletico Madrid struggles after Barcelona departure
Griezmann told ESPN adapting back to Atletico's system was hard at first after his loan return from Barcelona, even as he helped the club advance in the Champions League group stage.
Antoine Griezmann said adapting back to Atletico Madrid's system was difficult in the months after he rejoined the club on a season-long loan from Barcelona in August 2021, according to ESPN. "To be honest it was quite hard for me at first. It was a rhythm I wasn't used to, a new system for me," Griezmann told ESPN, in comments published December 11, 2021.
Griezmann had left Atletico for Barcelona in 2019 after five years with the Madrid club, then returned in 2021 on loan with an obligation to make the move permanent the following summer, per ESPN's reporting. In LaLiga, his return produced three goals in 12 appearances, a modest tally the outlet reported alongside his adjustment period.
The same ESPN account did not detail Barcelona's stated reasons for allowing Griezmann to leave on loan, nor any financial terms of the loan-to-permanent structure. Those specifics were outside the scope of the source retrieved for this restoration.
The buyout clause behind the loan
The loan agreement Atletico and Barcelona struck in September 2021 carried an obligatory purchase clause set at 40 million euros, triggered if Griezmann played more than 45 minutes in at least half of the matches for which he was available, according to ESPN's separate reporting on the transfer terms. The two clubs disagreed over how that threshold should be counted: Barcelona's position was that Griezmann's appearances during the loan's first season alone satisfied the clause, while Atletico argued the 50% threshold had to be measured across both years of the two-year loan before any purchase obligation kicked in, per the same ESPN coverage. That dispute, still unresolved as of the comments Griezmann gave in December 2021, sat in the background of his on-pitch adjustment -- his market value and Atletico's finances were tied up in exactly the kind of playing-time question his own comments about finding his footing spoke to.
Where he found his footing
Griezmann's adjustment showed up more clearly in the Champions League than in the league table, per ESPN: he scored four goals in the group stage, including the opening goal in a must-win match against Porto that helped Atletico advance. "Finally I'm getting better, and I'm feeling better on the pitch. To get to the next round of the Champions League was very important for me," Griezmann said.
The gap to Real Madrid
At the time of the comments, Atletico sat 10 points behind rivals Real Madrid heading into a derby match, ESPN reported. Griezmann downplayed the gap: "At the end of the day there are three points at stake. I don't think it really matters how many points ahead they are." ESPN's report noted Griezmann was, by that point in his career, the fourth-highest goal scorer in Atletico Madrid's history.
Atletico's form matched the difficulty Griezmann described in December: the club struggled across competitions for much of the 2021-22 season before improving from around the turn of the year, according to Into the Calderon's season coverage. Griezmann finished that campaign with eight goals and seven assists in 36 appearances across all competitions, the same outlet reported, a return that helped Atletico secure a Champions League qualifying spot for the following season despite the slow start he was describing to ESPN in December.
US In News compiled this archived account from contemporaneous coverage by ESPN. It restores a story originally published on this site in December 2021; figures are as reported at the time.