A well-founded opinion of many followers of the English football league at the moment: The two best players in the Premier League are Norwegian.
– Is there a better player in the Premier League than Martin Ödegaard? Arsenal captain’s national team teammate, With Erling Haalandmight have something to say, The Telegraph wrote (you are switching to another service).
Haaland, who scored 25 goals in 19 Premier League games for Manchester City, has been scrutinized since the beginning. Mohamed Salah’s The record of 32 goals will be shattered. Alan Shearer and Andy Cole have had wild 34-goal seasons, but at that time 42 matches were played, now 38.
Haaland, 22, may not win the Premier League title in his opening season in England. The reason for that is a convincing Arsenal and its leading Norwegian star.
Ödegaard, 24, is a former wonderkid who was chased by the big European clubs. Now he is back with a rush to the biggest headlines.
The birth of Martin mania – “He just danced with the ball”
Ödegaard was born in 1998 in Drammen, which is located more than 40 kilometers southwest of Oslo and is a city with a little over 100,000 inhabitants.
– If you didn’t know, you’d wonder what the hell a perfect artificial turf field is doing here on the highest edge of the city, in a quiet area with nothing but elegantly painted houses along a winding road and a small school, The Athletic wrote (You are moving to another service) after visiting Ödegaard’s home regions.
In his childhood, Ödegaard spent his free time on the gravel court, which later got an artificial grass surface. He was always on the court, with his snacks, waiting for older boys to come and join his games.
Finns probably know Drammen best from the city sprint of the Skiing World Cup. Krista Pärmäkoski skied second place in the traditional sprint in 2017, which is the Finns’ previous podium place from the city.
Ödegaard was so dedicated to self-directed practices and games that the locals are not at all surprised by his rise to world stardom.
Martin’s father With Hans Erik Ödegaardwho played 241 league games for Strömsgodset from 1993 to 2003, also plays a significant role.
Hans Erik founded the football division of the Drammen Strong club and coached his son until he moved to Strömsgodset at the age of 11.
In the spring of 2014, Ödegaard became the youngest player in history in the Norwegian league, at the age of 15 years and 118 days. In a training match against the United Arab Emirates, he became the youngest debutant in Norway’s national team history, at the age of 15 years and 351 days.
If father Hans Erik was first and foremost a workhorse in the midfield, Martin became a creative ball player who has not been dazzled by his small size among big men.
– He just danced away with the ball, recalled the manager of Strömsgodset and a family friend of the Ödegaards Rune Marthinsen.
Hans Erik has said (you are switching to another service) about his son’s training, that there were three guidelines: train a lot, train hard and train correctly. Martin never practiced without a ball.
For the opponents, the dances were a tough piece.
– Not that the opponents wanted to hurt him. But it was a little boy who dominated the game. Some were provoked, Marthinsen recalled.
At the latest, after the national team debut, all the big clubs in Europe were after the prodigy. According to Hans Erik, the offer came from more than 30 clubs.
For example, from Chelsea’s head coach From Jose Mourinho in December 2014, views on Ödegaard were asked, but the Portuguese did not want to go to the “auction”.
Strömsgodset employees tell about the Martin mania – giant clubs, media and sponsors each wanted their share of the teenage sensation.
In the end, Ödegaard chose Real Madrid. Hullunmylly’s calming down was a relief for the club and other players, Strömsgodset employees admitted.
Realism quickly caught the eye at Real Madrid
The child prodigy never grew into a twinkling star in the giants of Madrid. The difficulties started already in the first spring, 2015, when Ödegaard was also on the bench in the second team of “Los Blancos” in Castilla.
Piloted the second team Zinedine Zidane didn’t like the exemptions Ödegaard got when he trained in the first team, even though he played in the second team. The line-up was included in Ödegaard’s contract.
Despite this, Ödegaard made his La Liga debut at the age of 16 years and 157 days, in the final match of the 2014–15 season.
Real Madrid head coach Carlo Ancelotti has later commented bluntly on Ödegaard’s debut and the club’s politics.
– When Florentino (chairman Perez) to buy a Norwegian footballer, you simply have to accept it. In addition, the chairman decided that he will play three matches with the first team as a public relations activity. He could be the best player in the world, but I don’t care because he wasn’t the player I asked for. The contract was PR, Ancelotti wrote in his book According to ESPN (you will be transferred to another service).
The Norwegian experts had hoped that Ödegaard and his representatives would have chosen his transfer more carefully – going to, for example, Ajax or Dortmund, which were better known for nurturing young players. Some thought that Martin-mania had been too much for the young man.
In the end, the loan spells followed one another: from Holland to Heerenveen and Vitesse, then back to Spain at Real Sociedad.
After a successful period at Sociedad, Ödegaard still got seven league games at Real Madrid at the beginning of the 2020–21 season, but in January 2021, a loan spell took him to Premier League Arsenal this time.
The home was found – the game vision is charming
In the summer of 2021, Arsenal and the head coach Mikel Arteta were also ready for a risky game. The London club did not acquire a playmaker, but waited for Real’s decision. In the end, Arsenal got Ödegaard for 35 million euros – the loan became a permanent transfer.
It was a gigantic stroke of luck, both for Arsenal and for the former child prodigy who wanted to get out of the madhouse.
– I was worried about his development. At some point he had to calm down. It was time to belong to something, it was time to feel at home, said the experienced Norwegian journalist Knut Espen Svegaarden.
Familiar Marthinsen thinks that everyone in Real Madrid was a big star, and there is not always any information about uniform team training.
– Martin is happy at Arsenal, loves London and has a great connection with Arteta.
At Arsenal, giant chaos had slowly turned into optimism when Arteta took over at the end of 2019. The former Arsenal skipper had started his coaching career Pep Guardiola’s as an assistant at Manchester City.
Now Arsenal is reaping the benefits of the fact that the club management gave Arteta time, made heated player transfers and committed to their young players.
For this season, Ödegaard also received the captain’s armband at Arsenal. In Arteta’s opinion, Ödegaard “represents the club’s values in the best possible way”. Ödegaard, on the other hand, has told how every day with Arteta is a new school day.
– He doesn’t just tell us what to do, he teaches us why. It helps to understand and develop.
At Arsenal, Ödegaard plays with the number 8, which Arteta also wore.
Arsenal’s game is in harmony – and Ödegaard is the orchestra’s spherical conductor.
When Ödegaard released with a magical long ball by Gabriel Martinelli to score in the Brighton win on New Year’s Eve, compared the Sky Sports expert Paul Merson Ödegaard’s view of the game, a snooker icon to Ronnie O’Sullivan.
– He was the only player on the field who saw the opportunity for that pass. Kevin de Bruyne sees things like that, Ödegaard sees, but I don’t think anyone else in the Premier League does, Merson said.
Even last season, doubters compared Ödegaard to the one who played in Arsenal from 2013-21 Mesut Özilwho at his best dominated the playmaking area with his left foot, but then totally drowned in the shadows.
This season, the vision has been clear – the 35 million euro purchase from Real Madrid is a robbery.
Arsenal has collected 50 points in the middle of the season. The last time Arsenal won the Premier League was in 2003–04, without losing a single match. In their Invincibles season, Arsenal had collected 45 points by the halfway mark.
A word of caution for Arsenal fans, though: the last team to have at least 49 points midway through the season but missed out on the title was Liverpool in 2018-19. Liverpool eventually collected 97 points and lost once during the season, but Manchester City came through. Now City are five points behind Arsenal.
At the end of the season, Ödegaard can lift the Premier League’s championship trophy and be chosen as the season’s best player – over the Norwegian scion who is 1.5 years younger.
The prodigy from Drammen dances away from others again.
Manchester City defeated Arsenal on Friday 27.1. In the 4th round of the FA Cup, I scored 1–0. In the Premier League, the teams will meet on 15.2. and 26.4. You can see the Premier League standings at this link.
Sources: The Telegraph (switching to another service), The Athletic (you are switching to another service), Marca (you switch to another service), ESPN (switch to another service), Goal.com (you are switching to another service), Daily Mail (switch to another service), FourFourTwo (you switch to another service), Sky Sports (switch to another service), Football Espana (you will switch to another service)