Alexandre Lacazette has said he will leave Lyon at the end of the season and suggested he is ready to join Atletico Madrid.
The French striker has been heavily linked with a move to LaLiga and confirmed his Lyon departure in a newspaper interview on Friday.
Lacazette, who has hit 26 Ligue 1 goals for Lyon this season, said he feels now is the right time to move on.
The 25-year-old insisted the decision over his next club is down to him, not Lyon, and strongly hinted at a switch to Atletico.
“I think it’s the right time,” Lacazette told L’Equipe. “I want to discover something else, to put myself in danger and to pass a level.
“I say that I score goals, but I know very well that on a European scale, I am not yet very well known. I want to see if I can answer the questions that people are asking, and to make further progress.”
Asked directly about rumours Atletico Madrid would be his next club, Lacazette said: “It’s Atletico…
“They are a club that is in the last stages of the Champions League for several years.
“There is a great team, in a new stadium, and it is also a club that makes the players progress. And there is Antoine Griezmann.”
Discussing his next move further, Lacazette added: “The president told me what he told you at a press conference. It is I who chooses my future destination. It is a personal choice for my carefully considered career, which I have done for a long time.
“No one wanted to harm anyone. The common goal was to be able to leave on good terms. It is important that the club that trusted me and who came to pick me up at the age of 10 can recover money after all that we have been able to do together.”
Griezmann has been strongly linked with a move away from Atletico, with clubs including Manchester United reportedly interested in buying the forward, but Lacazette indicated he would relish the chance to team up with his compatriot.
“It would be a beautiful story if we could go on together,” Lacazette commented. “It started in the French Under-18 team. He arrived timidly.
“There are always small groups, and he was a little alone, but we got closer, because we played together in attack and we got along well in life. Then, both of us, we carried almost all the rest of the group.
“Initially, Antoine was as shy as I was. Afterwards, he climbed the ladder, he became an international star, and he took more confidence, he opened up.”
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