Martin Odegaard at Real Madrid: A 'PR exercise' gone wrong or the making of the Arsenal captain?

7 April 2025, 17:07 | Updated: 8 April 2025, 10:05

A decade on, it is difficult to imagine a player of only 16 being paraded in front of television cameras and asked to give a 15-minute press conference in front of the world's media but that was the reality for Martin Odegaard arriving at Real Madrid in 2015.

Rarely, if ever, has a transfer involving a player so young caused such frenzied media hype. Odegaard was a thrilling talent, wanted by every top club in Europe after breaking records with Stromsgodset in Norway's top tier and the Norwegian national side aged 15.

But the gulf between expectation and reality, when it came to his first-team prospects at Real Madrid, was brutally laid bare in comments by his own manager, Carlo Ancelotti, in a book published barely a year later, when Odegaard was still only 17.

"I thought, 'I don't care if he comes or not, because he's not going to play for me now,'" Ancelotti wrote in Quiet Leadership. "He could go on to be the best player in the world after I'm gone, but I'm not interested in the signing because it isn't of importance to my job.

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