Martin Odegaard is becoming one of the few football prodigies who reached their full potential, but it has not been an easy journey.
From the age of 15, the Norwegian started showing his class and caught the eyes of the biggest European clubs.
He visited several clubs in view of signing for them before joining Real Madrid as a 16-year-old.
The midfielder trained with their senior squad and was supposed to play with the B team, but he was quickly lost in the club’s system.
After spending some time out on loan, he returned to Madrid but still could not play regularly before moving to Arsenal on an initial loan deal.
He is now the captain of the Premier League-chasing Gunners and believes his experience at Madrid has helped him.
He said via The Daily Mail: ‘I learned to be tough and to face challenges. It’s part of who I am now. It’s the reason I’m where I am today.
‘I was always thinking about what I needed to do to be the best version of me I could be. That’s why I needed to move on.’
Just Arsenal Opinion
Although he is considered young, Odegaard has been around the top of European football for a long time.
It is great to see him finally doing as well as fans expected when he first broke onto the scene and we are lucky he is on our books.
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I’m always happy to see Arsenal signing good players who’ve been at the Spanish teams already. They know what a graveyard it can be, they don’t tend to want to go back whereas those who haven’t been there tend to see it through rose-tinted lenses.
It doesn’t sound as though MO is in any hurry to go back there which is good news.