In the hills above Drammen, a skinny youngster who would go on to sign for Real Madrid at 16 and now shines for Arsenal announced himself
. Some tried harder than others to be persuasive. At one club, the manager they met barely looked up from the paperwork he was scanning, so Hans Erik grabbed his boy and said: “Let’s go.”
“It says something about his character and personality he was able to rise up again after he took a step back in Madrid. Martin has some values. He probably couldn’t have coped with Martinmania when he was here if it wasn’t for that solid base and for his family background. That’s also why he was able to go up again. He is so humble and his parents, brother and sisters are all down-to-earth.”
It was reasonable to wonder whether he might be more of a latter-era Mesut Ozil type, who drifted and didn’t dominate games for all his delicacy of touch, than an-early era Ozil, who facilitated so much attacking play with his finesse working within the team framework.Those who know Odegaard well felt this was a key moment in his career, to establish whether he could figure out how to best use his technical expression to dominate games.
He is certainly a strong contender for the Arsenal captaincy, which is up for grabs at the end of the season. He has responded well to taking the armband recently — helping a team that had fallen to three demoralising defeats at the start of April pick themselves up and beat Chelsea and Manchester United back-to-back to relaunch their bid to secure European football next season after missing out for this one.
The gathering includes friends thrown together from Australia, Argentina, Poland, Denmark, Ireland and England, as well as locals. Naturally, they are keen to see Odegaard do well, although they are hard-core enough that club comes before countryman.
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