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TThe last time someone saw Martín Ødegaard wearing the Real Madrid shirt he was running up the Rosaleda field, alone. Madrid had just lost the semifinal of the Spanish Super Cup to Athletic Bilbao, but even when the minutes were gone and the final too, while they were chasing a life preserver, desperately in need of creativity, Zinedine Zidane did not ask for the Norwegian. Ødegaard didn’t even get warm, didn’t set foot on the grass until full time when he got out and trained on his own.
It had become a recurring theme. In December and January, he played 77 minutes for Shakhtar, five minutes against Celta, and that was it. When, four days later, the squad was appointed to visit Alcoyano in Second Division B in the Copa del Rey, a tie that Madrid was going to lose, Ødegaard was not in it. This time it was his choice. He had told Madrid that he wanted to leave, to go somewhere where he would really play.
San Sebastián, let’s say. Or, as it turns out, London. On Wednesday, Arsenal confirmed the arrival of Ødegaard on loan until the end of the season. His international coach, Ståle Solbakken, says: “Arsenal’s game could fit him well: I like the style that Mikel Arteta is trying to impose.”
Playing is a start. Before that semi-final, Luka Modric had been asked about Ødegaard. “The last time I spoke to him, I told him that I like him as a player and as a person,” said the Croatian. “He has to keep fighting for his place on this team, to make a difference when he plays, to show that he deserves to be here. My advice would be: work and fight for your place ”. Modric, however, is part of the reason why Ødegaard was not playing and ignored him. Instead of fighting, there was flight, seeking opportunities elsewhere, a space to grow.
“It’s easy to say it’s my fault,” Zidane had said and many have said so, especially since Ødegaard is not the only young footballer who has few opportunities at Madrid. But, the coach continued, the players must earn them.
Zidane may note that Ødegaard started the first two games of the season and there was even a line-up change to accommodate him, although he was removed at halftime in the second. You can point out that Ødegaard returned to the team after recovering from his first calf injury. What he did say, publicly, was that the absences were “circumstantial”, insisting: “Here he will triumph.” But it won’t, not yet. He is leaving for six months, his fourth loan since he arrived in Madrid six years ago at the age of 16.
In 2019, Ødegaard began a two-year stint at Real Sociedad, but Madrid called him a year earlier after his Champions League exit against Manchester City last August. Even at 21 years old, it was not what he had planned or wanted, nor what the Royal Society expected. “Martín is a talented player who can give a lot to the team,” said Zidane. “It has improved every year. He has to adapt and go little by little, but I have no doubt what a great player he is ”.
Ødegaard’s optimism was cautious. Since rejoining Madrid, he has had a calf injury and coronavirus, returning from that forced absence only to suffer a second injury. There has been bad luck, issues that few foresaw. And Modric, at 35, has been better than anyone expected, the man who won the Ballon d’Or. And yet there is still a sense of lost opportunity and wasted time with Ødegaard, development stopped; the suspicion that there really was no plan or place for him; a feeling, above all, of inevitability.
A year ago, Jorge Valdano was one of the many who predicted this, writing: “When I say that one more year at Real Sociedad would not be bad, I am not saying that it lacks maturity, but right now the Madrid squad is too rich in means . Context offers no guarantees that you will earn a spot on the team. When the team, as a consequence of planning and age, begins to shed the prestigious competitors it now has, then Ødegaard can come up with the status of a crack as it deserves. At his age, it would be better to play 50 games for Real Sociedad than to sit and wait in Madrid ”.
Valdano’s point has been made. Ødegaard leaves after playing just 367 minutes. He has not scored goals and has not provided assists, nor numbers to enthuse the Arsenal fans, nor reasons for the Madridistas to regret his departure a lot, as long as it is temporary. But if you want to know how good he is, beyond trusting Mikel Arteta’s judgment, you only need to look at the team he leaves, the immense quality of the players before him and the other team that wanted to sign him, and in the same fact they had to.
As soon as Ødegaard communicated to Madrid his desire to leave, he looked north towards Real Sociedad, the place that had been his home. They loved him, not only because of his affection for him, but because of the footballer they know him to be. And nobody knows “Martinxo” like they do.
Playing only on the right of midfield or out of the front, his season at Real Sociedad had been a revelation. Until the blocking, it would not be an exaggeration to suggest that he could have been the best player in Spain, full of energy and invention, the ball describing unlikely angles and discovering spaces that nobody saw, passing through holes that were not there. “He covers a lot of ground, he understands the game, he can clear everything up with threaded passes, dribbling and shots from mid-range,” Valdano wrote. “A varied, practical and attractive talent.”
Attended, integrated into a young, exciting and mostly local team with a powerful collective identity, he said he felt like “a younger product”, as if he had been there all his life. He adapted, listened, followed, but also took on the responsibility of leading. I thrived on it, actually. They learned from him as he learned from them. It took seven goals and nine assists for Real to reach the Copa del Rey final, beating Madrid 4-3 at the Bernabéu on the road with Ødegaard’s first goal, and also reached the Europa League after finishing sixth.
It had been a season; the problem was that it was only one. Ødegaard had been waiting a second and told his teammates that he was staying, but then Zidane called.
There was a reason for that. Well, two: first, Madrid’s needs, coupled with the lack of money to buy, and second, their extraordinary performances. This move would improve them; It would also hurt the Royal Society, their level reflected in how they reacted, the alarming public sadness. “When they announced that he was leaving, he left us reeling,” admitted the winger Portu. “We cry for his departure,” Miguel-Ángel Moyá said. Also reflected in the quality of the replacement they were after: David Silva.
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“Martín gave us so much on the field with his goals, his assists, his presence,” said Nacho Monreal. “We were a bit ‘orphaned’ when he left but the club handled it very, very well, and above all very Quick. In less than two days we went from losing Ødegaard to signing Silva ”.
However, even having Silva didn’t mean not wanting Martinxo back. When the opportunities that the Norwegian had been given in San Sebastián were not fulfilled in Madrid and Ødegaard admitted that he wanted to leave, the Real Sociedad invited him immediately. It would have been gone in a heartbeat, but it wasn’t. “We would have grown up with him,” said coach Imanol Alguacil sadly. Perhaps Arsenal will do it instead. And maybe him too.
