Griezmann by Luca Caioli

Author:Luca Caioli [Luca Caioli and Cyril Collot]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781785784279
Publisher: Icon Books
Published: 2018-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

The Little Devil

Matches played: 34

In the starting eleven: 32

Minutes played: 2,855

Goals: 10

Assists: 3

Yellow cards: 8

Red cards: 0

Antoine Griezmann’s 2012–13 La Liga season in black and white. Stats fans will note that this does not include one Copa del Rey match in which he was in the starting eleven, played 77 minutes and scored a single goal. In total, Griezmann finished the season with eleven goals across all competitions, just behind the fourteen scored by Carlos Vela and the fifteen by Imanol Agirretxe, the team’s two top scorers.

Let’s look back at how the story unfolded from 12 July, as Antoine was posing for the new Real Sociedad Nike collection for the 2012–13 season. The event was held in the Gainditu building at the Zubieta in front of a roomful of sponsors, teammates, club employees and journalists. Xabi Prieto, the captain, modelled the blue and white striped shirt. Claudio Bravo, dressed from head to toe in green, unveiled the goalkeepers’ strip. Imanol Agirretxe wore the away strip, an orange shirt and black shorts that had something of the Holland shirt worn by a certain Johan Cruyff about it. Antoine donned the electric blue training strip, which looked a lot like the France team colours. Griezmann, sporting a new haircut, was all smiles and promised plenty of innovation when it came to unusual goal celebrations. The new collection was tested for the first time in a friendly against Eglantins d’Hendaye on 14 July which resulted in a resounding 15–0 victory for the San Sebastián club. With the exception of the game against Eibar, their pre-season matches saw Real Sociedad go up against sparring partners from France (Lyon and Bordeaux) and Italy (Modena, Parma, Varese and Siena).

Real Sociedad appeared in their orange strip for the first time at 4pm on 20 July at the Stade Pavillon Bleu in Saint Jean de Luz. OL were their opposition. The game had added spice for Antoine, a former supporter of the Lyon club. It was a friendly, of course, but the number 7 was extremely motivated and gave his team the advantage in the 62nd minute. Sixteen minutes later, Mikel Gonzalez lost the ball resulting in a Lyonnais counter-attack finished by Jimmy Briand. The game ended in a 1–1 draw. Griezmann and Chori Castro, the Uruguayan originally from Trinidad who had arrived from Mallorca during the summer transfer window, were the best players on the pitch. The Basque press highlighted the French player’s stunning form but Real Sociedad began its 67th season in La Liga in the worst possible way with a stinging 5–1 loss at home to Barcelona on 19 August. ‘Like the previous year, the team struggled to be effective and seemed to still have the same problems,’ said Montanier.

Eleven days later, Antoine’s long-awaited contract extension was finally complete. On 30 August, at noon, the left-footed player signed a new agreement binding him to Real until 30 June 2016. Wearing a light-blue t-shirt and standing in the middle of the Anoeta pitch for the club channel RSTV’s camera, he announced: ‘I’m very happy.

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