{"id":204010,"date":"2026-03-24T15:02:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T15:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/204010\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T15:02:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T15:02:07","slug":"orlando-city-confirm-antoine-griezmann-summer-arrival-the-strong-ambition-spoke-to-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/204010\/","title":{"rendered":"Orlando City confirm Antoine Griezmann summer arrival: \u2018The strong ambition spoke to me\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Orlando City have announced the summer arrival of Antoine Griezmann from Atletico Madrid.<\/p>\n<p>The World Cup winner has joined the Major League Soccer side on a deal to the end of the 2027-28 season, with an option to extend for a year.<\/p>\n<p>An announcement on Tuesday confirmed Griezmann will sign as a designated player when MLS\u2019 secondary transfer window opens in July, pending medical clearance and receipt of his International Transfer Certificate and P-1 visa.<\/p>\n<p>The Athletic\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/7139610\/2026\/03\/22\/antoine-griezmann-transfer-atletico-madrid-orlando-city-mls-summer\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">reported<\/a> on Monday that Griezmann, 35, was authorized to fly to the United States during his days off to complete the deal after a weeks-long negotiation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBringing Antoine to Orlando is a landmark moment not only for our club, but for our city, our supporters and for Major League Soccer,\u201d Mark Wilf, Orlando City SC owner and chairman, said in a release on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe is one of the most gifted, accomplished and influential players of his generation, and his decision to choose Orlando City reflects the mission and culture of our club.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur focus is on consistently building a championship-caliber roster every year, and adding a world-class player like Antoine reinforces that commitment and our belief in what the Club can achieve.\u201d<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">A generational pull \ud83d\ude09 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/XoqVtLucgp\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/XoqVtLucgp<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Orlando City SC (@OrlandoCitySC) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/OrlandoCitySC\/status\/2036445572668813599?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">March 24, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Griezmann is Atletico\u2019s all-time top scorer with 211 goals for the Spanish side.\u00a0This season he has scored 13 times in 43 matches, including once against Tottenham Hotspur during their 5-2 first-leg win that helped them reach the Champions League quarter finals.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am very excited to begin this next chapter of my career with Orlando City,\u201d he said on Tuesday. \u201cFrom my first conversations with the Club, I could feel a strong ambition and a clear vision for the future, and that really spoke to me.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI look forward to making Orlando my new home, meeting the supporters, feeling the energy at Inter&amp;Co Stadium, and giving everything I have to help the team achieve great things.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The forward has previously won the Europa League with Atletico and a La Liga title with Barcelona. With 137 international caps to his name, he also won the World Cup with France in 2018 but has not featured for them since 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Orlando City are 13th after five matches played, and finished ninth in their conference last season before losing in their Wild Card fixture to Chicago.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Orlando City have announced the summer arrival of Antoine Griezmann from Atletico Madrid. The World Cup winner has&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204011,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[47195,5010,5692,139,4788,141,140,2062],"class_list":["post-204010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-atletico-madrid","tag-la-liga","tag-mls","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-city-sc","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}