Antoine Griezmann advised to leave “the mess at Barça”

Bixente Lizarazu, the former French international who played for Athletic Club and Bayern Munich, has advised Antoine Griezmann to leave “the mess at Barça,” according to Sport.

Lizarazu was participating in a report prepared by France Football investigating Griezmann’s situation at Camp Nou. Eric Olhats, his former representative, made headlines with some explosive claims about Lionel Messi’s influence at the Catalan club, but Lizarazu has been less specific.

“When [something] is crap, six months is the maximum time [you can spend on it],” he said. “Where is the pleasure? You have to go.” Griezmann, he said, is “a player that I like a lot,” and that’s why “it feels bad to see him like that. To be well you need to have a favourable environment. Conditions are important for the good performance of a player – with Atlético Madrid and France he has had them.”

At Barcelona, however, Lizarazu believes Griezmann “isn’t happy on the field – he doesn’t get to play his football. In the national team they value him and he is appreciated, but not at Barça. And this hasn’t been the case for just two months, but 18. That’s an enormous period of time in a footballer’s career.

“To play well, a footballer must feel supported. There must be a relationship of trust with the coach and teammates, and I don’t see that. The solution is to leave. Sometimes, it is necessary to amputate the hand to save the arm. You have to be able to say enough. It is too much, the mess at Barça. It’s better to leave so as to not continue falling, to go to a stable club where the coach wants him.”

Griezmann is a highly experienced footballer. The Frenchman has scored 202 goals in 516 competitive club appearances, alongside 32 goals from 82 French caps. Despite his nationality, he has spent his entire senior career in Spain – spending five years with Real Sociedad and then five years at Atleti, where he played his best football. He joined Barcelona in 2019.

Griezmann won the Second Division with La Real, as well as the Europa League, the European Super Cup and the Spanish Super Cup with Atleti. With France, he won the U19 European Championship in 2010 and the 2018 World Cup.

Featured image courtesy of Bleacher Report.