France – Italy: the ghost of Antoine Griezmann has resurfaced again

For the first international break since the end of Euro 2024, the French team had to start on a good footing by readjusting a group that had encountered some difficulties during the European Championship with this elimination against Spain in the semi-final. With this first gathering of the season, Didier Deschamps had the mission of consolidating certain new elements, of offering a chance to other youngsters to integrate the tricolor group, but also and above all of giving back confidence to some executives who were losing. This was particularly the case of Antoine Griezmann who had received a lot of criticism for his campaign in Germany which had been very far from his usual standards in major competitions. An obvious legend of French football and the French team, the native of Mâcon is finding solid sensations with a goal and two assists in four Liga games with Atlético de Madrid. But with the Blues, a blockage persists on the individual level, to which must be added the collective debacle symbolized by this slap against the Nazionale (1-3).

Called up once again to the French team, Antoine Griezmann had to make a good impression after a cataclysmic Euro. The coach of the Blues had also confirmed in a press conference that he had spoken with the Atlético de Madrid player to reassure him morally and mentally: “I talk a lot with the players. Antoine is certainly the player with whom I have had the most discussions, he has had more or less happy periods. That he is not at 100% today… He will also enter into a management of playing time. The discussions are permanent. I spoke to him during the Euro, between competitions. I spend a lot of time with the players to give them confidence.”. But sometimes, even with all the good intentions, the truth can be hard to swallow. The more international breaks go by, the more unrecognizable Antoine Griezmann is. And it is the entire French team that seems to suffer from the fall of a living legend.

A last minute appointment…

While he was originally supposed to start on the bench due to the announced starting line-up of Randal Kolo Muani, Antoine Griezmann finally took his place in the starting eleven of the Blues since the PSG attack was sick. Unfortunately, as during Euro 2024, the Atlético player was only a shadow of himself, alternating between sterile opportunities and botched actions. He even came close to uselessness in the French offensive animation on certain sequences: “They were better. We weren’t good in pressing and defensively. We’ll have to work and review all that. I don’t know how to explain it, we started well, but we didn’t know how to fix it when their central defender came to play in six, that caused a lot of problems. We’ll have to do better against Belgium to continue.”Grizou said without discussing his performance in more depth. Moreover, the drought is starting to be felt: 0 goals, 0 assists, 0.00x decisive per match, over Griezmann’s last 10 appearances in the Blues jersey. A drop in form, certainly, but for what reasons? There are obviously many, starting with the collective.

For over ten years, Antoine Griezmann has been the central driving force of Didier Deschamps’ system. He has played one of the biggest roles in the Blues’ collective (alongside Paul Pogba). When the Atlético player is in crisis, the entire game of the Blues suffers. The problem is that Didier Deschamps no longer knows where to place his favourite in his system and this is felt with the naked eye when watching the match. Officially starting in the number 10 role, Griezmann has never stopped looking for his place: he has sometimes switched with Michael Olise on the right flank, sometimes with Kylian Mbappé at the forefront of the attack. But whether as a winger or a false 9, the Mâcon native is restrained, is no longer himself and censors his productivity. This is how he becomes a burden on his team and no longer the heart of the game as was the case in the past: “Something broke during the Euro and he probably won’t start this new campaign with the same confidence and complicity with Didier Deschamps as before.“, had specified the consultant and former player Bixente Lizarazu. Against Belgium, Griezmann will have to make up for it or his future with the Blues could be written in the past…