MADRID \u2014 Antoine Griezmann made the most of his final home match with Atletico Madrid in the Champions League.<\/p>\n
Griezmann didn\u2019t score despite having a few good opportunities, but he led Atletico\u2019s attack along with Juli\u00e1n Alvarez and was named the game\u2019s most valuable player following the 1-1 draw with Arsenal in the first leg of the semifinals. The second leg is Tuesday in London.<\/p>\n
The semifinal winner will advance to face either Bayern Munich or Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League final May 30 in Budapest, Hungary.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a shame I couldn\u2019t find the net,\u201d said Griezmann, who is joining Orlando City SC this summer. \u201cBut it will happen in the second leg for sure. We all put in a great effort.\u201d<\/p>\n
Griezmann\u2019s best chance at the Metropolitano stadium was a second-half shot that hit the crossbar. He also came close with a strike from inside the area.<\/p>\n
The 35-year-old Griezmann missed a penalty kick in the 2016 Champions League final that Atletico lost to Real Madrid.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to reach the final,\u201d Griezmann said. \u201cIt\u2019s my dream. I\u2019ve prepared a lot for this match and the one we will have in London, and hopefully we can make it to the final.\u201d<\/p>\n
The French playmaker said Atletico deserved a better result after improving in the second half at the Metropolitano.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bad minutes we played in the first half hurt a bit,\u201d Griezmann said. \u201cWe fixed a couple of things tactically for the second half and we were able to pressure better and move better. The fans kept pushing and it also helped.\u201d<\/p>\n
Griezmann is Atletico\u2019s all-time leading scorer but his minutes have been managed by coach Diego Simeone this season. He\u2019s spent 10 seasons with Atletico, with 494 appearances and 212 goals. He also played for Real Sociedad and Barcelona.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all want to make it to the final,\u201d Atletico midfielder Koke Resurreccion said, \u201cand hopefully the game in London won\u2019t be the last one for Griezmann in this competition.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MADRID \u2014 Antoine Griezmann made the most of his final home match with Atletico Madrid in the Champions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[28,1335,139,4788,141,140,2062,76046,110],"class_list":["post-257152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-florida","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-city-sc","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-soccer","tag-social-sports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257152","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=257152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}