The Atlético de Madrid footballer, Antoine Griezmannadmitted he was trying to convince the NFL to play a game in his league at the Metropolitano. Taking advantage of his visit to London for the duel between the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Chicago Bears, he declared that will try to give “another push” for the NFL to have a second stage in Madridat the Metropolitan Stadium, after its premiere next year at the Santiago Bernabéu.
The French player attended this Sunday the match between the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Chicago Bear of the NFL at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London where it chose Madrid to host a second NFL match at the Metropolitano, after the one which will be played in 2025 at the Madrid Coliseum.
“I tried, with the people at the club, with the NFL… The stadium for me is the most beautiful there is, also what is around it, the parking lot… They took that into account. We’ll give it another push to get it to the Metropolitan“, declared the Frenchman during a meeting with the Spanish media in London.
In 2025, the NFL will organize a match at the Santiago Bernabéuon an unspecified date between September and October, that’s for sure. But looking to the future, organizers of the world’s top American football league are speculating that it could also be played in Barcelona and the Metropolitano, although this is expected to take place from 2026.
Regarding the possibility of playing in Barcelona, Peter O’Reilly, Executive Vice President, Club Business & League Events of the NFL, highlighted during the presentation of the game at the Bernabéu in February this year that they are “focused” on their “association with Real Madrid. As I said before, there are other big cities and other big stadiums, and in a way I think you answered the question in your question in terms of the importance of having a renovated world-class stadium. This is certainly a factor in any conversation with Barcelona, whether now or in the future. “This (the partnership with Real Madrid) is a situation where we have a renovated world-class stadium, a great partner and an incredible city behind it.”
The NFL is surprised by the Bernabéu
Although it considered both stadiums, Bernabéu and Metropolitano, the NFL ultimately opted for the Real Madrid stadium. The renovation of the White Colosseum left people speechless to those responsible and this led them to exclude the rojiblanco team from the field for the moment. O’Reilly admitted this.
The coach revealed the impressions they left during their visit to the renovated Real Madrid stadium during a Champions League match: “Obviously, We have been in talks for over a year.on the potential of this opportunity. Some of us had the opportunity to set foot on the Bernabéu pitch, in its new form, during a Champions League match, and we were left speechless by the transformation of the stadium that carried out by Santi, Emilio and President Florentino Pérez. . So it’s a good relationship, recently sealed.
The US president then praised the Bernabéu turf: “It is important to ensure that we have a great stadium not only for the fans, but also for the players. We believe that the surface of the playing field, The natural turf at the Bernabéu is world class. Obviously, we will continue to work with them during this year and a half which we have to make sure of, as in all the stadiums we go to. You have to make a judgment in terms of the field. “But our team on the field has complete confidence in the turf, including the incredible technology they have to maintain that turf.”
