Julián Alvarez arrived at Atlético Madrid in August after spending two years at Manchester City.
The Argentina international joined Manchester City in 2022 and won the World Cup and the Copa América with the national team during his time at the Etihad.
This wasn’t enough for the 24-year-old to get ahead Erling Haaland in the pecking order at Manchester City.
Atlético opened their door and invested €70m to secure the striker’s services. Marca now claim the La Liga side paid this because they were convinced, he’s currently a ‘world star’ and can replace Antoine Griezmann as their ‘flagship’ player.
Alvarez has scored nine goals for the Madrid club, and it includes a brace in their 6-0 win over Sparta Prague on Tuesday. The former Manchester City man opened the scoring with a free kick in the Champions League.
Marca points out Griezmann has been in charge of free kicks over the past several years. Los Rojiblancos scored 11 goals from free kicks since 2015 and the Frenchman scored nine of them, but none of them were in the Champions League.
The report adds the South American is claiming to compete with Griezmann to take free kicks in the future.
Since leaving Manchester City, he has been the main man at Atlético and has a chance to eclipse the Frenchman to be the first choice to take free kicks. In short, Alvarez is getting what he had desired for before arriving in Spain.
