If Griezmann returns to Atleti …

“If Griezmann returns to Atleti I break the subscription”, some athletic friends have told me. It is a reaction to a certain provisional attitude with which he was always at Atlético, waiting for a better destiny where he could win titles and sit at the table of Cristiano and Messi. That aggravated with the silly teenage girl concocted by the hand of Piqué. Now the possibility is open that he will return, in exchange for Saul. He has not done well at Barça, not at least as he expected. And in his absence Atlético has won LaLiga, as happened in 13-14… just before the Frenchman signed. Two leagues without him, none with him. Stuff.

But, if it comes out, it will be a good operation. He is a great striker, a great acquisition for a team in which Luis Suárez lacks some company. At Barça it has not gone well because he went back foot, looked at with suspicion by Messi, who would have wanted the signing of Neymar. Unlike the Atleti who left, a very orderly house, he found a Barça that was a cage of crickets, with Bartomeu discredited, the ‘pentacrat’ that Messi leads at ease, spy novels and incomprehensible decisions about the coach of which nobody he wanted to take responsibility. That was very difficult.

He is not the first to leave Atlético in these years and crashes. Some even returned: Filipe Luis, Diego Costa and Carrasco. Others were unfailingly less: Miranda, Godín, Thomas, Arda Turan, especially this … So what has happened to Griezmann is relatively normal: Simeone pushes to the limit, but within a model club and a healthy environment. Outside there are other things, so once compared, it is missed. In any case, the fan would do better to look favorably upon him if he returns. God wants them to be sorry, they say to themselves. In his day he contributed goals and when he left, he left money. His peccadillo of youthful arrogance is venial.