Just one year ago, fifteen-year-old Martin Odegaard was worried about how he would manage his final year of school and practise for his local football team in Norway.
Martin Odegaard, 16, has signed for Real Madrid, but just months ago he was fitting his secondary school studies around playing for his local team in Norway
Odegaard holds his shirt after being unveiled as a Real Madrid player, where he will be paid £40,000 a week
Odegaard’s proud family were at the signing at the Bernabeu stadium as he was announced as a Real Madrid player
Schoolboy to football star: Martin Odegaard, pictured with his brother, rose through the academy of his local team in Norway but now plays for the European champions
Only a few months after making his debut in the main division of the Scandinavian country, Odegaard made history last year by becoming the youngest player to ever play for the Norwegian national team.
Now that he has joined Real Madrid, the 16-year-old football prodigy will play among players like Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale.
Having gone from being a schoolboy to becoming the youngest player to represent his country, Odegaard had an amazing year in 2014. This week, he agreed to a £40,000-a-week contract with the European champions.
Odegaard was raised in a pious Christian home in the small riverfront town of Drammen, and as a teenager, he regularly expressed his religious beliefs on Twitter.
Being a part of the young team of Strømsgodset, his local team where his father used to play, allowed him to balance his education around his football career.
Being the odd man out among kids his own age, Odegaard started training with the adult team, who play in the Norwegian Premier League, at the age of thirteen.
Family man: The young footballer, pictured in Sweden with his mother, was brought up in a strong Christian family
Aged 15 years and 117 days, the attacking midfielder (far left) made history by becoming the youngest player to take to the field in a Norwegian premier league match in April
Just weeks after signing his first professional contract, Odegaard broke more records by becoming the youngest player to score in the league. Here he is pictured bottom left bowling with friends
Odegaard (pictured left in both photos) has also made three appearances for the Norwegian national team
The Norwegian sensation answered only in Norwegian during his press conference in Madrid yesterday, but will be joined at the Spanish club by his father who was also signed as a coach
At the age of just 15, Odegaard celebrates scoring for Stromsgodest in Norway in May 2014.
His skill was soon noticed by major European teams, and the teenager started training with both Manchester United and Bayern Munich.
Aged 15 years and 117 days, the attacking midfielder made history by becoming the youngest player to take to the field in a Norwegian premier league match
Odegaard has made three appearances for Norway, including one against Bulgaria in a 2016 European Championship qualifying.
The 15-year-old offensive midfielder made history in April when he participated in a Norwegian Premier League game as the youngest player ever.
Just a few weeks after signing his first professional contract, he became the youngest player in the league to score, breaking yet another record.
Larger things were in store for Odegaard, who has since made three appearances for the Norwegian national football team.
Per-Mathias Høgmo, Norway’s manager, told Aftenposten that “he has developed enormously in a short time.” I think he toppled barriers that nobody could have foreseen falling.
“His playing, talent, and decision-making abilities are astounding,” he went on.
Even his father, Hans Erik, had projected that the 16-year-old would someday be interested in signing with a large continental team.
Rumours that Odegaard would be moving to England surfaced after he trained with his favourite teams, Manchester City, Arsenal, and Liverpool.
Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Celtic, and Ajax of the Netherlands all wooed the budding prodigy; as a condition of the contract, Madrid hired his father as an assistant coach.
Instead of figuring out how to change, he discovered that nothing needed to change. The same upper body strength produced by time and touch, the same shimmies, the same searches for space. Only that he’s doing it at the Premier League’s summit right now.
Once more, the goal is to give the impression that everything happened by fortunate accident. However, that also characterises Odegaard. The insouciant creative midfielder’s curse is to get others to believe that their touches, dips, passes, and vision are really supernatural powers. Odegaard is particularly vulnerable to this because of his childhood celebrity.
He deserves better, a recognition that he has sidestepped roadblocks that have brought those before him to their knees and somehow left him extraordinarily level-headed.
That makes Odegaard the best person to captain Arsenal because he is the embodiment of the squad. There is a lot in this season that feels serendipitous: William Saliba’s loan and return, Mykhailo Mudryk vs Leandro Trossard, Eddie Nketiah taking his chance, Granit Xhaka’s redemption arc.
But this is a group of young men who have stayed true to themselves through adversity and come out the other side feeling like they can take on the world under a manager who makes them believe that world belongs to them.