Qatar 2022: French maestro Griezmann ranks among football’s greatest
Griezmann has been quietly magnificent at this World Cup, his third stellar major tournament
How do you rate Antoine Griezmann’s club career? Let us count the wins. One second division trophy with Real Sociedad, a Europa League title (and a Champions League final) with Atletico Madrid, and a Copa del Rey with Barcelona. He probably goes down as one of the best players of his generation not to have won a top-flight league title or a Champions League.
Griezmann has been a very good player at club level: 234 goals in 617 games is an excellent strike rate, and there were times, particularly in those early Atletico seasons when he was the thorny rose in Diego Simeone’s bouquet of barbed wire, when he was truly brilliant. Still, it would be hard to argue that his club career has been objectively better than, say, Raheem Sterling’s.
In the blue shirt of France, it’s a different story. Griezmann has been quietly magnificent at this World Cup, his third stellar major tournament. And as outlandish as it might sound, I think, for selflessness, adaptability, consistency of impact, and the ability to rise to those defining moments where history is balanced on a knife’s edge, Griezmann is the outstanding men’s international footballer of the last decade, and one of the greatest of all-time.
Perhaps you think that’s an exaggeration? Let’s consider the facts. At Euro 2016, Griezmann was the top scorer; he also won the official Uefa award for player of the tournament. Having been a callow left winger at the 2014 World Cup, at this point he was France’s main man in attack, the billboard star of a home tournament, with all the pressure that entails. But he lived up to it.
He started on the right wing then switched to a high number 10 role, often playing just off Olivier Giroud, for most of the knockout stage, in which he scored five of his six goals. In the semi-final against Germany, one of the real heavyweight tournament games of the 21st century, the world champion of two years prior against the world champion of two years thence, Griezmann was the best player, the most direct and decisive figure on the pitch although France then lost in the final against Portugal.
Two years later, in France’s victorious 2018 World Cup campaign, Griezmann, now playing as more of a right-sided shadow striker, either scored or assisted in every knockout round. (The only other players to have done this since the round of 16 came in: Zinédine Zidane, Brazil’s Ronaldo and Mario Mandzukic.) But really, his key role was as a luxury dead-ball game-breaker.
He delivered the set pieces from which Raphaël Varane and Samuel Umtiti scored in the quarter-final against Uruguay and the semi-final against Belgium respectively, chiselling those tight matches open.
The final was a strange game but again Griezmann was pivotal, whipping the free kick which glanced off Mandzukic’s head for France’s first goal, nervelessly converting a penalty for the second, then teeing up Paul Pogba for the third.
Euro 2020 was a dud, although Griezmann didn’t play particularly badly.
France then won the subsequent edition of the Nations League – the best way to show that they had simply been unlucky in the Euros – with Griezmann winning a crucial penalty against Belgium in the semi-final, and performing strongly again in the final against Spain.
And now this masterwork in progress. Griezmann’s intelligence and humility is what has made this French World Cup campaign, sans Paul Pogba and N’Golo Kanté, work. He has dropped back to play on the right of the midfield three: diligently linking play, scurrying and spraying passes from the halfway band, orchestrating the unfolding of counters and the unpicking of deep blocks, and chipping in with some critical tackles and interceptions.
Philippe Auclair, the French writer, calls him Les Bleus’ “beat-giver”. I saw someone on French Twitter describe him as a “cheville ouvrière milieu-attaque de grande facture technico-tactique” — a midfield-attack kingpin of great technical-tactical craftsmanship — which frankly is as good a way of putting it as any.
Even in this much deeper role, he has been the outstanding creator at this World Cup. Griezmann is the joint leader for assists (three, with Harry Kane and Bruno Fernandes) and chances created (16, with Lionel Messi), and is out on his own for expected assists, with 2.9. When the quarter-final hung in the balance, and France really needed a moment of cold, clear vision in the heat of the battle, it was Griezmann who provided it, bending that sensational cross around the back of England’s defence and onto Giroud’s head.
The real clincher is Griezmann’s extraordinary consistency and durability. The quarter-final against England was his 72nd consecutive game for France. He last missed an international match five-and-a-half years ago. What an incredible feat of grit and devotion, toughness and love. Some players regard international football as a sideshow that they can dip in and out of. Griezmann has committed to it with every fibre of his being.
In case I still haven’t convinced you, it’s worth one final look at the numbers. In the 12 matches Griezmann has started in the knockout stages of major tournaments, he has scored eight goals, and assisted six. That’s comparable to Lionel Messi (24 starts, eight goals, 18 assists, many of them against a weaker standard of opposition in the Copa America) and far superior to Cristiano Ronaldo (16 starts, three goals, two assists) and Neymar (ten starts, three goals, four assists). If he can win a second World Cup, it would be truly bizarre not to regard him as an all-time great. Personally, I think he has already earned that status.-The Times
