The 2022 World Cup was unique for many reasons.
It was the first World Cup to be played in the Middle East, and the first one to take place in the middle of the season, as far as Europe's top clubs are concerned.
One thing that did not change, of course, was players being able to use the tournament as a platform to show what they can do on the biggest stage, and perhaps get big moves on the back of it.
While Josko Gvardiol, Enzo Fernandez, Alexis Mac Allister and Jude Bellingham are among the players to possibly fall into that category, Antoine Griezmann is different.
Griezmann is not the youngster making his name, but he did shine in Qatar as, in the space of seven games, he arguably redefined his own position.
That is not to say Griezmann had not been impressive this season prior to the World Cup. Before the tournament he had directly contributed to 10 goals for Atletico Madrid, scoring five and creating as many.
Griezmann's form has come during a season in which he had to settle for a substitute role up until September 18, due to Atleti attempting to navigate a financial clause in their loan agreement with Barcelona, which would have kicked in had the 31-year-old played a certain amount of minutes.
Had that clause been activated, Atleti would have had to pay €40million to re-sign Griezmann. As it was, they paid under half of that to bring him back to the club permanently in October.
It's Barca up next for Atleti in the highlight fixture of this weekend's LaLiga matches. Going into that match, Griezmann is a player reimagined.
The creator in chief
Griezmann has returned from the World Cup with a vigour and verve to his play perhaps not seen since his prime years at Atleti back in 2017 to 2019.
His goal contributions stand at 13 (five more than any of his team-mates) after three assists across two appearances since Atleti's campaign restarted – one game in LaLiga and one in the Copa del Rey.
Griezmann leads the club's scoring charts along with Alvaro Morata while his tally of seven assists is four clear of next-best Joao Felix, who seems destined to leave the club this month. None of his team-mates come close to matching Griezmann's 42 chances created, and 35 of those have come from open play.
But it's Griezmann's positioning that is the truly interesting aspect of his fine form.
Didier Deschamps has often utilised Griezmann as a second striker in international football. That was the position he played in at Euro 2016, and during France's successful run at the 2018 World Cup.
Yet in Qatar, Griezmann was deployed as the most advanced of a midfield trio, and there he showed his ability to not only find space in the final third, but run games altogether.
Only Kylian Mbappe (49) was involved in more shot-ending attacking sequences for France at the tournament than Griezmann (30).
However, of Griezmann's 361 open-play touches, just 14 came in the opposition box, with the vast majority clustered in the middle of the park.
Not that it prevented Griezmann from wielding his influence. He provided three assists, leading the competition alongside Harry Kane, Bruno Fernandes, Ivan Perisic and Lionel Messi. Unlike all of those players, however, Griezmann's expected assists (xA) of 3.6 was actually slightly underperformed. Essentially, he was creating higher quality chances for those assists than his counterparts.
That quality was evidenced with a sublime cross into Olivier Giroud for France's second goal in the 2-1 quarter-final victory over England, having earlier teed up Aurelien Tchouameni's strike to move ahead of Zinedine Zidane and Thierry Henry in terms of the most assists for Les Bleus. Griezmann's 28 assists rank as the most by any France player for his country in the last 50 years.
Griezmann's 22 chances created were the most at the tournament, albeit only nine of those came from open play. When it came to creativity, Griezmann was at the top of his game.
From poacher to playmaker
It was certainly a case of picking up where he left off for Griezmann when Atleti took on Elche in LaLiga on December 29. Diego Simeone's side won 2-0, and Griezmann was superb.
He set up both goals and created four chances. No player attempted more passes in the opposition half (37), or played in more crosses (five).
Despite Atleti having lined up in a 3-4-3, with Griezmann nominally positioned on the right flank, his average position was just ahead of the halfway line.
It was a similar story against Real Oviedo on Wednesday in the Copa del Rey. While he was supposedly playing in a front two alongside Alvaro Morata, Griezmann's touches were centred around the halfway line, with only two coming in the opposition box.
Dovetailing with Morata in a forward line, or indeed playing as an inside forward in a 3-4-3, is in principle ideal for Griezmann to drop into a similar role as to the one he thrived in during the World Cup.
Barca best be wary
It would seem the two-man attack would provide the perfect platform for Griezmann to show what Barca never managed to unlock on a consistent basis during his two years at the club.
Not that his time at Barca was a complete failure. Griezmann scored 35 goals and assisted a further 16 across 102 appearances. But he looks like he has his mojo back now. In fact, no LaLiga player has assisted more goals in all competitions.
Morata should provide the pace and work rate to stretch Barca's backline, handing Griezmann the space to drop between the lines and pull the strings.
Griezmann is averaging 73.4 touches per 90 minutes for Atleti this term, but only 4.8 in the opposition's box. His role has been gradually developing over the course of the campaign and the World Cup proved just how effective he can be.
Barca twice gave away the lead against Intercity Sant Joan d'Alacant in their Copa del Rey tie, and as Inter and Bayern Munich displayed in the Champions League, the Blaugrana's defence can be got at, even if in LaLiga Xavi's side have conceded just six times.
If Griezmann, who at least might be easier to spot, what with his bright pink hair, can replicate the influence he had in Qatar, Barca will be hard-pressed to stop him.
Lawrence Shankland earns Scotland call ahead of June double-header
Hearts striker Lawrence Shankland and his Hibernian counterpart Kevin Nisbet have both been included in the Scotland squad for the next month’s Euro 2024 qualifiers against Norway and Georgia.
The Edinburgh-based pair take the places of Stoke’s Jacob Brown, who missed the end of the Championship season with a hamstring issue, and Southampton forward Che Adams, who recently suffered a recurrence of the ankle injury he sustained in Scotland’s win over Cyprus.
Shankland, who previously made four appearances in 2019 and 2020, was called back into the fold for the Spain game in March and he has kept his place at the end of a season in which he has scored 28 goals for Hearts.
Nisbet, who won all of his 10 caps in 2021, is recalled for the first time since damaging his anterior cruciate ligament in February 2022. The 26-year-old has scored 12 goals for Hibs since returning to action in December.
Rangers defender John Souttar is recalled after missing much of the season through injury. The 26-year-old, who has not played for the national team since last summer’s Nations League defeat in Ireland, takes the place of Norwich City centre-back Grant Hanley, who has been sidelined with an Achilles problem since early April.
Blackburn centre-back Dom Hyam has retained his place after earning a late call-up for the last camp in March, while Steve Clarke has opted for consistency in the goalkeeping department with Angus Gunn, Zander Clark and Liam Kelly again called up in the absence of Craig Gordon, who remains sidelined as he tries to fight back from a double leg-break sustained on Christmas Eve.
Scotland, who are top of Group A with two wins from their two games so far, face Norway in Oslo on Saturday, June 17 before welcoming Georgia to Hampden three days later.
Leeds squad not good enough to stay in Premier League – Sam Allardyce
Leeds manager Sam Allardyce said the club’s players had not been good enough after Sunday’s 4-1 home defeat to Tottenham sealed Premier League relegation.
Allardyce had been Leeds’ last throw of the dice with four games remaining, but after three defeats and a draw the 68-year-old was unable to mask the club’s systemic failings and save them.
He said: “Most of it comes down to how good are your players? These players have tried very hard while I’ve been here and I can’t fault their effort.
“But as a squad, they haven’t been good enough by the fact that they’re in the bottom three in the Premier League.
“I would have hoped I could have got a little bit more out of them, so I take responsibility for that.
“But it’s a tough old world when things start failing and when they start failing and confidence starts going then it’s very difficult to claw it back and we’ve been unable to do that.”
Leeds’ three-year stay in the top flight is over and Allardyce made it clear poor player recruitment had been the biggest factor in their demise.
“General recruitment is the number one factor for any manager or any coach or any head coach or any club to be successful,” he said.
“Without top-level recruitment, a manager and a coach and the staff are only as good as the players they have available and their ability.
“Actual quality is all about recruitment because better players and more intelligent players make you a better coach, make everybody at the club better, make it a happy club going forward.”
Leeds’ ultra-slim hopes of avoiding the drop on the final day appeared dashed in the only the second minute against Tottenham when Harry Kane fired the visitors into an early lead.
The Elland Road faithful responded with raucous defiance and that quickly turned to anger as they vented their fury at the Leeds board.
Leeds wasted several first-half chances and were duly punished – as they have been all season – when Pedro Porro put Tottenham 2-0 up with a brilliant angled finish two minutes into the second half.
Jack Harrison reduced the deficit, only for Kane to curl home his 30th league goal of the season two minutes later.
Tottenham substitute Lucas Moura then compounded Leeds’ misery when he waltzed through to add a fourth in stoppage time.
Leeds fans chanted ‘sack the board’ and called on chairman Andrea Radrizzani to sell his majority stake in the club to American co-owners 49ers Enterprises.
The financial arm of NFL franchise the San Francisco 49ers holds a 44 per cent stake with a deal in place to buy the remaining shares before January 2024.
But that was contingent on Leeds being in the top flight and relegation has muddied the waters.
Allardyce urged the club to quickly resolve their ownership issue, but it remains to be seen who will be in control as they bid to bounce straight back from the Sky Bet Championship.
“I haven’t said I’m staying yet so there’s a lot of discussion that needs (to be had) both ways on what’s going to happen,” Allardyce added.
“Whether that’s me or whoever that might be if it’s not me. I’m not committing myself to say I am or not staying just yet.”
Brentford goalkeeper David Raya valued at £40million by boss Thomas Frank
Brentford boss Thomas Frank values goalkeeper David Raya at £40million.
Tottenham and Manchester United have been heavily linked with Spaniard Raya, who has a year left on his Bees contract having turned down a new one.
The 27-year-old kept his 12th clean sheet of the season in the 1-0 win against Manchester City on Sunday but Frank admits his future probably lies elsewhere.
“I think we only have one player for sale,” said Frank. “That’s the one that’s been talked about a lot, David. He costs £40million, I think I said.”
Frank himself is on the radar of bigger clubs having guided Brentford to a ninth-placed finish in their second season in the Premier League.
Other players, such as full-backs Rico Henry and Aaron Hickey, will also attract interest this summer.
But Frank added: “We are a selling club. I don’t think that’s a secret. But they need to be crazy high amounts for the players for anyone to leave.
“I’m pretty sure that everyone, including myself, is very happy here at Brentford.”
Ethan Pinnock’s 85th-minute goal saw the Bees became the only club to do the double over City this season.
The champions have bigger fish to fry, however, as they chase an historic treble with the FA Cup final against Manchester United to come next weekend, followed by the Champions League showpiece with Inter Milan on June 10.
Pep Guardiola left the likes of Erling Haaland, John Stones and Ilkay Gundogan on the bench and used the occasion to give 19-year-old Shea Charles his debut as a substitute.
“Shea Charles, against this team with top, top strikers, fast and strong, it’s not the easiest debut,” said the City boss.
“At the same time we didn’t play for points. We know him, he trains quite regularly with us. He’s so good, so composed.
“When you can make your debut, after joining the club aged nine, is the biggest compliment for all the managers he had and the trainers and those that take care of him. I’m pretty sure it was a big moment for him.”
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