They called him Big Boots, too big for anyone else to fill. “Atlético Madrid are my life,” Luis Aragonés once said, and he was theirs too: the man that Fernando Torres, their favourite son, said “represents everything Atlético is”, and whose statue stands outside the Metropolitano. The coach that led them to the first division title in 1977 and, when they needed him most, to the second division title 25 years later, he managed them four times over four different decades, starting with an Intercontinental Cup triumph, aged 36. He was also a midfielder with a lolloping stride who won three leagues, two cups and appeared to have won the European Cup when his extra time free-kick beat Sepp Maier in the 1974 final. That was virtually the last of his 173 goals for the club, more than anyone else, ever.
Until now. Just before 11pm on Tuesday, 49 years later, Atlético got a penalty against Getafe. Álvaro Morata picked the ball up, but no one doubted who was going to take it. Antoine Griezmann had known this was coming and so had everyone else, if not exactly how. This way, he had time to think about the moment he had been waiting for, maybe even to fear it, but he knew where he was going – he had studied David Soria’s movements with Pablo Vercellone, the goalkeeper coach – and he also had support. “Luis Aragonés went to take it with him,” Diego Simeone said.
Hit high and hard, Soria got a hand on it, but it was not enough. Atlético led 3-1, and Griezmann too had his 173rd goal. The man who scored the first goal at the Metropolitano had matched the man who scored the first at the Calderón, their new home rising to celebrate both. He raised his hands to the heavens, to Aragonés, then ran towards Simeone, waiting for him on the touchline, arms wide. The group hug grew and everyone sang Aragonés’s name. “Today Antoine reached Luis’s numbers, incredible numbers,” Simeone said. “He deserves it: he is an extraordinary footballer and an ideal person for a team like Atlético.” It had taken him 364 games, six fewer than Aragonés.
It might not have been his funniest celebration ever – there were the Fortnite dances, the red and blue glitter borrowed from LeBron James, and nothing will ever beat him sprinting across the Anoeta running track and piling into a car with his Real Sociedad teammates, beeping the horn and waving out the windows like they had just won Family Fortunes – but it might have been the one he felt most. “It’s very special,” he said.
He also said it was a “pity”. Two late goals from a superb Getafe denied Atlético a record 21st consecutive home win, a wild game finishing 3-3. But if that record escaped them, if AS called this “historic … and bitter” and Marca claimed that Getafe had “poured cold water on Antoine’s party,” it fits somehow, something a bit atlético about it. This is the club that lost that 1974 final when a ludicrously long shot in the last minute forced a replay, prompting the president to describe them as El Pupas, an accident waiting to happen; that suffered that moment in Lisbon when they finally returned 40 years on, and that other one in Milan two years later; that built an identity around loyalty in defeat and where the centenary anthem lauds “what a way to lose!” and the song they actually played on their 100th birthday was the Rolling Stones’ You Can’t Always Get What You Want.
Besides, this record will not be taken away, maybe ever. When Griezmann was trying to decide what to do with his future back in 2018, his wife, Erika, told him: if you go to Barcelona you will be just another player, at Atlético you will be history. She wasn’t wrong, even if he had to find that out for himself. Going might have risked his legacy; it might have ruined it entirely, but there was redemption in Tuesday’s collective celebration, something even deeper for having departed the way he did and returned the way he did too, his determination to make it up to them, to win them back. There was also something simpler, something almost childlike in him: he needs to feel happy, at home. And Atlético is his place, Simeone more than his manager.
Legend says that Griezmann was a disaster at Barcelona, but that’s not true, and there was a reason they spent €120m on him. What is true is that he was always a slightly awkward fit, and while he tried to ingratiate himself he never quite managed to be himself. At times, some there thought, it was like he didn’t dare. He had also joined possibly the only club in the world where there was someone who did what he did only better. Not so long ago Rodrigo De Paul described Griezmann as being Atlético’s Lionel Messi but Barcelona had the actual Messi. “I told him: fly, I hope it goes well,” Simeone revealed later, but they kept in contact and when it didn’t, there was only one place to go: home.
Plenty were opposed. When Griezmann had come with Barcelona, his plaque outside the stadium had been trashed, a couple of toy rats left there. They knew he could be brilliant: he had led them to a Champions League final and won a Europa League. But, curiously, Atlético had won two league titles: the year before he first came, and again after he had left. More importantly, he had walked out the way he walked out, that documentary and the one-year delay only deepening the damage. He couldn’t just expect to walk back in like nothing had happened.
He didn’t. Instead, he was acutely aware of what he had done. And if many weren’t convinced, if there was rejection, whistles too, Simeone absolutely was – not just that year but the year either, despite his difficulties. On loan, Griezmann scored only three league goals, eight overall, in the first season and it could have been all over right there; Atlético certainly didn’t want to spend the €40m transfer fee they were obliged to exercise if he played more than half of the games over two seasons. At club level, the inclination was just to send him back. The coach, though, had different ideas and fought for them.
That was when they came up with the idea of limiting him to less than 45 minutes every game to avoid the clause being triggered. A 60th-minute substitute, week after week, Griezmann accepted without a word of complaint and set about making the most of the few minutes he had. Barcelona were forced into a corner, negotiating a sale for €20m on a player that had cost them six times that, and Griezmann felt liberated but there was work to be done still. “I know people want to hear from me: I am sorry for how I hurt them,” he said. Later he would add: “I went through that situation because I caused it. I had hurt the club and the best thing I could so was keep my mouth shut, work hard and do everything to help the manager.”
“When not everyone agreed with his return, I was convinced he was born to play for Atlético,” Simeone said. “He grew, he left, he came back to a place where there were people who were uncomfortable because of his departure and he turned it around.”
All it took was him being La Liga’s best player in 2023, by miles. Above all, the way he did it. He ended last season on 15 goals and 16 assists in the league alone, and has already scored 16 in all competitions this season. Nor is it even about the goals: it is everything. It doesn’t really feel right to call him a forward at all. His 173 Atlético goals come with 77 assists. Happy now, it is the dominance of the game and the responsibility and the reliability that goes with it, the vision, touch and intelligence, the efficiency in everything he does: there’s nothing flash, every pass perfectly weighted, every decision perfectly weighted too.
Then there’s the work, the values for which the former Atlético forward Kiko Narváez said Aragonés would have embraced him. When Griezmann scored on Tuesday, the first thing Kiko cited were the “kilometres”. He is a brilliant footballer who plays, who runs, like a rubbish one. Only he runs like a brilliant one too: he is everywhere, except the wrong place. “When you tell a player, ‘play free’, they don’t interpret it right,” as Simeone puts it. “Griezmann is the first football where you say ‘play free’ and he does everything well. He’s extraordinary and has something special. He likes to understand where the team needs his effort. He will be history for Atlético, for sure.”
When Griezmann came home, there were four goalscorers ahead of him, history makers all. Now there are none, just Big Boots accompanying him to the penalty spot. “Whatever I say will fall short of his legend,” Griezmann said. “Everything Atlético is thanks to him. I feel an emotion, pride and happiness I can’t explain. To be level with him in goals is magical and incredible for me, but there’s a lot still to do and I will never be at his level because he is Luis Aragonés.”
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