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What's the story?
In an interview with YouTube channel Que Partizado, Atletico Madrid striker Diego Costa spoke about his former teammate Antoine Griezmann's decision to join arch-rivals Barcelona in the summer. He revealed that the Frenchman's dream was to play with Barcelona superstars Luis Suarez and Lionel Messi, and that it was a fairly normal decision.
In case you didn't know...
Antoine Griezmann was linked with a move to Barcelona for the past two summer windows. In the summer of 2018, the Frenchman looked set to move to Catalonia, but in a dramatic turn of events, he stayed on at Atletico for another year.
However, the 28-year-old finally completed a much anticipated move to Barcelona for a fee of €120 million, making him the joint-fourth most expensive player of all time.
Griezmann was one of Atletico's best players in recent years, netting 94 goals in 180 appearances for Los Rojiblancos since his €30 million move from Real Sociedad in 2014. The World Cup winner also helped Atletico win the 2017/18 UEFA Europa League and finish runners-up in the 2015/16 UEFA Champions League.
The heart of the matter
Diego Costa re-iterated the fact that there were no ill-feelings between him and Griezmann. He said: (H/T as.com for translation)
“His dream was to play alongside Messi and Luis Suárez. We all know the player he is. As a footballer you always want to try different things and it’s normal that he wanted to try his luck there see if he could become an important player at Barça like he was at Atletico.
Griezmann wanted a new experience and he’ll find that in Barcelona. I didn’t try to convince him to stay but if he had asked my opinion I would have told him that everybody should try new things.
Griezmann’s decision was normal. He has always been an up-front person. He never missed a training session, he always led by example… we can’t say anything bad about him, we are grateful to him.”
What's next?
With Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Ousmane Dembele all sidelined with injuries for the next few games, the onus will be on Griezmann to provide the firepower to bring Barcelona's LaLiga title defence back on track.
The Blaugrana will also be looking to get off to a good start in this season's Champions League, having suffered embarrassing exits in the recent past.
