Marca, Cadena SER and The Athletic are among the outlets reporting Sunday night that Atlético Madrid star Antoine Griezmann is set to leave Spain during the upcoming FIFA break in order to achieve his long-held ambition of playing in Major League Soccer.
Per Matteo Moretto and David Medina — who had the news first at Marca, shortly after Atlético suffered a 3-2 loss to Real Madrid in the Bernabéu — Griezmann is flying to the United States with Atlético’s permission to put pen to paper on “the last big contract of his brilliant career.” The 35-year-old is heading for Florida, where he will officially join Orlando City SC after the European football season ends in May.
Tom Bogert, Mario Cortegana and Paul Tenorio of The Athletic jointly reported that Griezmann will sign a two-year contract in Orlando with an option for the 2028/29 season; MLS is switching to a Europe-aligned calendar beginning in 2027/28. Griezmann will inherit his familiar #7 shirt in MLS, where he will instantly become one of the league’s highest-profile players, even on a struggling Orlando City team.
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Orlando City has been pursuing Griezmann for the past month, but the player had made clear that he was not going to leave Atlético midseason. Griezmann is hoping to win the Copa del Rey on April 18, when Atlético will face his former club Real Sociedad in the final at Sevilla’s Estadio de La Cartuja, and Atlético are taking on FC Barcelona (for whom Griezmann played between 2019 and 2021) in the UEFA Champions League quarterfinals next month as well.
Griezmann is one of the most popular players in Atlético’s history and he is the club’s all-time top scorer with 211 goals. Despite starting this season in a reserve role, the World Cup-winning forward has reasserted his importance to Diego Simeone with a series of brilliant performances since the end of November — proving once more that the club will have a massive challenge to replace him in Apollo Sports Capital’s first summer as majority shareholders.
Griezmann, who twice finished third in Ballon d’Or voting while at Atlético, has scored 13 goals and provided four assists in 42 appearances across all competitions. He is Atleti’s top scorer in the Copa del Rey with five goals, and no player in LaLiga has more goals as a substitute than Griezmann with six.
