Diego Simeone opened a pre-match news conference with a pointed, emotional tribute to Antoine Griezmann as Atletico Madrid prepare to move into the final weeks of the season. Griezmann, who has asked to stay in Madrid until the end of the campaign so he can say a proper goodbye, is set to leave for Major League Soccer club Orlando City when the season finishes.
The numbers underline why the occasion matters. Griezmann has made 494 appearances for Atletico and scored 212 goals, making him the club’s all-time leading scorer. In European competition he has 44 goals in 118 Champions League matches, and he remains one of the most recognisable figures in a side that is aiming for a deep run in the competition.
Simeone used the conference to single out the forward’s character and contribution, thanking him for his effort and humility and saying he is the kind of role model young people need. The coach’s thanks framed a farewell week that will include Griezmann’s final home Champions League appearance at the Metropolitano Stadium — a match that could also be Koke’s last in the same setting.
Griezmann’s decision to stay until the end of the season follows a career spent entirely in Spain: he began at Real Sociedad in 2009, moved to Atletico in 2014 for a transfer believed to be worth 30m euros, left for Barcelona in 2019, returned to Atletico on loan in 2021 and made that move permanent a year later. He is also a World Cup winner with France from 2018. Club and country milestones have made his presence at this moment as much about identity as statistics.
There is, however, a tension beneath the farewell. Griezmann’s relationship with the club has not been a straight line. His 2019 transfer to Barcelona and his later return underline a career of departures and returns. He has described past transfer negotiations as painful: he said he waited through a stalled move to Arsenal and twice felt let down by offers that did not materialise, and he insisted that a subsequent approach could not erase the hurt those episodes caused.
That complexity is part of what makes this goodbye more than routine. Griezmann asked to remain in Madrid to ensure he could leave on his own terms and not in the middle of a window of speculation. Atletico’s preparations now balance the short-term imperative of Champions League progress — the club are preparing for the first leg of a semi-final against Arsenal — with the long-term question of how to replace a 15-year reign of influence from figures such as Griezmann.
For the fans at the Metropolitano the final home European match will be a moment to measure what Griezmann meant in person rather than in numbers: 494 appearances, 212 goals and a clutch of Champions League strikes that helped define an era. His decision to move to Orlando City at the end of the season closes the chapter of a player who described his feeling for Atletico as something beyond love — love for the badge, for the colours and for the work behind them.
The most consequential fact going forward is simple: Atletico must find the next leaders to shoulder both the goals and the identity Griezmann carried. The immediate story will play out on the pitch at the Metropolitano and in the Champions League; the longer one is whether the club can replace not just a scorer, but a symbol.
