In all, Martin Ødegaard was on Real Madrid’s books for more than six and a half years. Having arrived as a teenage prodigy in January 2015, with every big club in Europe having made a play to sign him, Ødegaard left for Arsenal – he had spent the second half of the 2020-21 season on loan at the Emirates – in August 2021 after just 11 games and 489 minutes of game time for the world’s biggest football club.
Loan spells at Heerenveen and Vitesse in the Netherlands rebuilt the confidence that had taken blows from poor performances with Real Madrid Castilla, the reserve side then coached by Zinedine Zidane. An excellent season with Real Sociedad, which included a Copa del Rey goal against his parent club, put him back on Real’s first-team radar, but neither Zidane nor Carlo Ancelotti, who succeeded him, could find a way to shoehorn him into a midfield that already had Luka Modric, Toni Kroos and Casemiro.
At Arsenal, Ødegaard thrived from the start, given the central role that would never have been his at the Santiago Bernabeu. And though this season has been a difficult one with injuries, a quarterfinal clash with Real in the UEFA Champions League offers the perfect stage for Ødegaard to show Ancelotti just what he might have overlooked.
Real Madrid lost to Valencia at home on Saturday
Real are the Champions League’s kings, having won it on 15 occasions. Arsenal lost their only final, to Barcelona, back in 2006, and have not been part of the last four since 2008-09. But they qualified third in the new-look competition this season, and then routed PSV Eindhoven in the last 16.
Real, who lost to lowly Valencia at home on Saturday, have already been beaten four times in the Champions League this season, and needed penalties to get past Atletico, their cross-town rivals, in the last round. Arsenal have already beaten high-flying Paris Saint-Germain at the Emirates this season, and with the league title now out of reach, there should be a raucous atmosphere as they chase the biggest prize of all.
Ødegaard, in particular, will have a point to prove.
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