This summer’s international tournaments have featured copious amounts of star power. The world’s greatest footballers have taken the stage in both the Copa America and the European Championships. Lionel Messi’s Argentina fell to Alexis Sanchez’s Chile in the Centenario final. Even though Portugal are in the Euros final, Cristiano Ronaldo has been far from a superstar in the tournament. On a team filled with stars in its own right, one man has emerged as the next world star. Antoine Griezmann is that man, and it is a name if you don’t know by now, you will.
Coming into the tournament, France were one of the favorites. They won the 1984 competition, as well as the 1998 World Cup, on their home soil. This edition of Les Bleus was viewed as one of their best in recent memory. But, Paul Pogba, the potentially £100m man, was a main focus. Dimitri Payet, coming off a breathtaking debut season at West Ham, was the next name on people’s lips. Even after a year in which he got to the Champions League final, people were forgetting about Antoine Griezmann.
There were doubts as to whether the diminutive striker could shoulder the scoring load with Karim Benzema not welcome on the Euros squad. A hard line on the Golden Boot and a tournament for the ages has quelled those fears and then some.
Griezmann has scored six goals in six games. That total is the most in a single Euros since fellow Frenchman Michel Platini netted nine times in 1984. Griezmann’s goals have had ample effect as well. He put the nail in Albania’s coffin in the group stage. He singlehandedly eliminated both the Republic of Ireland and Germany in the knockout stages. Despite what many believe are tactical failings from manager Didier Deschamps, Griezmann just keeps putting the ball in the back of the net. People have become very accustomed to his half surfer dude/half Drake backup dancer goal celebrations.
But it isn’t just goals that is raising Griezmann’s profile in the eyes of the public. He scored plenty of goals at Atletico Madrid, 32 in all competitions this past season. It is the way he’s taken this tournament by the neck and made it his own. So many stars shrink in the spotlights of major competitions. Griezmann has basked in the glow of that light. From the opening kickoff to the dying embers of stoppage time, his motor does not shut off. Sure he’ll piss and moan when a call doesn’t go his way, but he never fully psyches himself out of a game. That allows him to be in a consistent position to pounce. And boy has he pounced time and time again.
France will play the final this Sunday against Ronaldo and Portugal. He will be looking for a measure of revenge given the last time these two met in a final. It was CR7’s Real beating Griezmann’s Atletico in the Madrid Derby UCL final just over a month ago. Griezmann was held at bay that day, and he could only watch in agony as Ronaldo sank the title winning penalty past Jan Oblak to end Atletico’s championship dreams. That tournament was Ronaldo’s showcase. This one has been Griezmann’s.
There were doubts about Griezmann coming in to this tournament. The only ones left now are as to whether or not he’ll finally get a hat trick in the final after coming close twice in these Euros. A trifecta of goals would tie him with Platini for the most ever at one tournament. It would be a fitting end for a tournament that has been a king making experience for the man they call Griez Lightning. It would also be achievement that pushes the 25 year old’s price tag on the transfer market past the lofty level his teammate Pogba is looking to reach in the coming months.