Why Griezmann's importance to Atletico Madrid is unmatched

Which player is most likely to open the scoring in Saturday’s Champions League final? Sounds like an easy question to answer, right? Cristiano Ronaldo has 16 goals already in this year’s competition. No other Real Madrid or Atletico player could boast even half of that number.

But let’s step back for a second and look at the bigger picture. After all, why limit our view on Ronaldo’s brilliance to what he has achieved in Europe? Across all competitions, he has found the net 51 times in 47 matches - averaging one goal for every 81.8 minutes that he spends on the pitch.

Set against such ludicrous production, Antoine Griezmann’s 32 strikes in 53 games start to look rather mundane. With the likes of Luis Suarez, Leo Messi and Neymar also running rampant, the Atletico striker did not even make it into La Liga’s top five scorers.

And yet, here’s the funny thing: Griezmann actually broke more deadlocks than Ronaldo this season. On 15 separate occasions, the Frenchman scored Atletico’s first goal in a match. His Portuguese rival did so ‘only’ 13 times for Real.

The intention here is not to diminish Ronaldo’s achievements - which remain preposterous no matter how you spin them - but merely to highlight how Griezmann has been every bit as essential to his own team. Diego Simeone described him last week as one of the three best players in the world.

Related: Simeone says Griezmann 'is one of the best three players in the world'

If you think that was sheer hyperbole, then it might be time to start listening to the opinions of people who work in the game.

In a survey earlier this month, L’Equipe invited 182 Ligue 1 players and managers to name the player whom they expected to become the star of France’s Euro 2016 campaign. A startling 46.15 percent of them chose Griezmann - notwithstanding the fact that he has scored just seven goals so far in his international career. Paul Pogba, whose transfer value has been mooted at close to €100 million, came in a distant second - with 22.5 percent of the vote.

How did this happen? Griezmann is 25, two years older than Pogba, and unlike his compatriot has never appeared on a Ballon d’Or shortlist. That must surely change in 2016, after the striker’s goals sank Barcelona and Bayern Munich over the past two Champions League rounds, but how could the world have overlooked such a talent for so long?

In part, we can blame the Spanish media focus on Barcelona and Real Madrid. But it is also true that Griezmann has been a late bloomer. He had never reached double-figures with his scoring in any season before he hit 11 goals across all competitions for Real Sociedad in 2012-13. His figures have improved significantly in every season since.

Invited to explain such impressive growth, Simeone put it down the player’s work ethic. Interestingly, that is the same trait that Griezmann seems to most admire in Ronaldo. During an interview with El Mundo last September, he defined Messi with one word: "talent.". When asked to do the same for Ronaldo, he replied: "hard work and talent."

Nobody could doubt that Griezmann is a grafter. Only one player - his team-mate Gabi, has covered more ground in this year’s Champions League.

Related: 3 Reasons Atletico Madrid will win the Champions League

Without that willingness to work, Griezmann would never have made it as a professional in the first place. Between the ages of 12 and 13 he had trials with a dozen or more clubs in France but was rejected by all of them on the grounds that he was too small or too physically weak.

Only Sociedad was prepared to take a chance. If evidence of his commitment to this career path were required, then it could be found in his willingness to commute back-and- forth across an international border through his early teenage years - living and completing his studies in Bayonne, in the south-west corner of France, whilst training with the Spanish club in San Sebastian.

Not that football ever felt like work to Griezmann. In his own mind, the experience of playing football has barely changed since he was a child. Asked by El Mundo how it felt to score a goal, he replied that it was "just the same as when you are playing in the street with your mates."

"I feel exactly the same," he continued. "We used to have tournaments out in the street, and when I scored I was the happiest kid in the world. Now every time I score I go back to being that kid. The happiness that you get from scoring a goal is just impossible to explain."

He might not experience that joy quite as regularly as Cristiano Ronaldo. But on Saturday at San Siro, he will be no less of a threat.