24 Oct 2014

'He's like Xavi': €15m 'God' who loves Liverpool confirms transfer 'visits'. Anfield-bound?

Liverpool continue to be linked with a move for €15m-rated Norwegian starlet Martin Odegaard, and this week, the coveted young attacker has confirmed that he is actively seeking a move to a top club.

In July, multiple reports claimed that:

* Brendan Rodgers sent scouts to watch the youngster in action.

* Liverpool then contacted Stromsgodset to negotiate a possible transfer.

When asked on Wednesday about interest from Liverpool, and Manchester United, Odegaard told reporters:

"It is correct. There might be some club visits after the season. It is because I want to be sure about an eventual choice in the future. Then you got to visit them and get a feeling about them. In case I shall leave, it should be to play on a higher level".

Odegaard is a self-confessed Liverpool fan, and so the chances are that one of the 'visits' he speaks of will be to Anfield. Indeed, when asked recently about speculation linking him with a move to Anfield, he told Dagbladet:

“Liverpool is my favourite club. That is not to say that I dream to play for them. I’m thriving at Stromsgodset and feel that I can develop myself right here.”

Odegaard is one of Europe's most coveted young players, and his father confirmed this in September, when he told Verdens Gang:

"I can't name the clubs, but almost regardless of who you name, they have been in contact with us"

Some info about Odegaard:

* Trained with Man United and Bayern Munich last year.
* Current contract expires in 2015.
* 5 goals/3 assists in 20 apps for Stromsgodset.
* Turns 16 in December.
* Real Madrid reportedly made a €15m bid over the summer.

* 2014: Broke 104-year old record to become the youngster player to ever feature for the Norway national team (15 years and 253 days).

* Broke another record recently when he became the youngest player to ever feature in a European Championship game.

On Sunday, Odegaard showed why he's so coveted by scoring scored in Stromsgodset's 2-1 league victory over Lillestrom.



Over the weekend, Scandinavian football expert and scout Fabrizio Bertuzzi hailed Odegaard as 'a talented and creative midfielder' with 'impressive maturity', and made another bold claim about the youngster's ability:

"I am not surprised Barcelona are interested. He is like Xavi and Andres Iniesta, and features a mix of both players. Despite being an adolescent he is almost a semi-god of football."

As is usually the case with most promising young attacking players, Odegaard is often compared to Lionel Messi (and risibly referred to as the 'Norwegian Messi'), but in a recent interview, he dismissed the comparisons:

“It’s very flattering to get so much praise, but one shouldn’t compare himself with players as good as that. However I do look up to a lot of footballers and try to improve by looking at what they do, and Messi is one of them.”

Maybe it's just me, but from the footage above, there something 'David Beckham' about the way Odegaard moves around the field. He seems unbelievably confident and assured for someone so young, and he definitely looks older than 15 (!)

Author:


60 comments:

  1. there is potential, he is only 15/16yo and i don't doubt that he may do very well as he progresses. *caution*- i would hazzard a guess that if we didbuy him, he would join the ranks of our other 'potentials' and possibly just drift into oblivion. thats the pessimistic view. the optimistic view is that once he learns the 'liverpool way' (whatever that is nowadays), he could well be our next superstar. saying that, he is playing first team football and doing ok, buy him and leave him there for a couple of years. unfortunately money talks and the vultures of the more affluent clubs will probably tempt him first...effluent clubs such as chelsc*m will ruin his career like so many others, just to stop others having him.

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  2. Sign this kid. He will be a bloody superstar..

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  3. How many Xavis do we need?

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  4. From the video, the kid gets so much space to move around, no marking nothing. Good finishing though.

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  5. Now the question is, why January and not last August?


    I highly doubt we'll sign him to be honest but if we do I will welcome him with open arms. But like Aldo said, would he come?


    To be honest if by January we pick up form and we qualify for the knock out stages of the CL then he might be tempted.


    Him and Sturridge would be deadly. Two very different type of players.


    If we do buy him then Borini should be sold as we cannot have that many strikers fighting for 2 positions.

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  6. This is my concern, the kid is 15 years old! Already touted as the next whoever.

    If he come to Liverpool, the world of expectation will be on him despite being so young. If we play him for the u18 or u21 we'll get a back clash from fans and probably the player a like.

    A 15 year old does not have the mental strength to cope with the physical and mental demands of the premier league and Liverpool FC in particular.

    Then again Fabregas was 16 years old and playing regular 1st team football.

    I would sign him up now and leave him where he is for the this season and the next. Let him get that core experience, specially with national side against the Europe's best and let him develop.

    Who knows, may be Gerrard replacement :0P

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  7. Norwegian league far less competitive than the Championship.

    I think our championship is the best lower division in the world.

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  8. There are times when I prefer watching Championship games over Prem

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  9. He may be supertalented and he may be the next whoever. We may regret not signing him five or so years from now but our problems are much more urgent than that. Sure, if we have 10 million to burn I'd say go for him but not before the first team is sorted out. That has to take priority over everything else.

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  10. It's not my 'problem', its the expectation of modern football that when you spend 100mn + on players, you expect a certain kind of contribution from the start. Most of the players we bought doesn't even look like they have quality to step up.

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  11. He will definitely choose Liverpool over Napoli all day long.

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  12. and one carragher

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  13. Btw, Yesil has been called up to train with first team ahead of Hull fixture. I would like to know what Lambert must be thinking lol.

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  14. After buying the kid we will let him go for free like Suso. So no point. really.

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  15. are the alphabets on your keyboard dancing?

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  16. The kid trained with Man Utd and Bayern Munich last year, so what happened? The kid rejected them or vice-versa?

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  17. Current Liverpool way = wet-pants when ball is in the air

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  18. Have to agree, no evidence £120 million wasted. But then as in everything it all comes down to 'personal opinion'. I would then counter argue does Man Utds atrocious start to the season mean there outlay has been wasted, and so on and so on ......

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  19. You are premature, and I hope it's your first time..
    Valdes is only reported to be due to train with MU, just as he was reported to have been due to sign with us. So far there is no evidence either way, but why would he want to warm the bench behind De Gea? That would cement his position as regards Spain, wouldn't it?

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  20. I feel sad for the guy. After 16 years of rejection, he finally got his dream move and we are treating him like dirt. Why did we buy him if this was going to happen?

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  21. Mr World Class Van Gaal spent £150m last window and is only 6th with less points than we have
    Maybe you could enlighten us as to how that fits with your theory?
    And please stop with the txt speak, it does my head in

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  22. We have the Welsh already.. This is the Norwegian one.. There are approximately 190 countries in the world so 188 left..

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  23. I never said we should ignore his failings. In fact no one is denying that it's Rodgers that is primarily responsible. Rodgers himself isn't avoiding that, he's not pretending as if he's done nothing wrong. He frequently talks about how he's got to be willing to accept criticism and blame. The point I'm trying to make is that there has to be something beyond that. Anyone can say "it's your fault, you messed up", a child can say that, but what you do after that is what is really important. Taking responsibility is literally to be the one who has the ability to respond. The club can do many things now but just sitting around saying "it's Brendan's fault" is totally pointless. They need to take action. Now JK suggests the owners may tighten the purse strings but I think that makes no sense. If Rodgers is no longer trusted with money then give him none at all, not a limited budget. If he can't do well with lots of money then how could he do better with less? It would be pure dumb luck it he did. So if the club wants to do something then they should take real action, not just have a reaction and get scared and say "no more money for you". That's the dumbest response, the one that requires the least amount of thinking, the one that solves the least amount of problems. Liverpool need so solve problems, not make new ones.

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  24. "Waste and wastes implies unwanted or unusable materials.The term is often subjective (because waste to one person is not necessarily waste
    to another) and sometimes objectively inaccurate (for example, to send
    scrap metals to a landfill is to inaccurately classify them as waste, because they are recyclable)"


    I don't agree that the word waste is the correct way to discribe the situation, the money spent can not be wasted as the new players are still members of the team and in most cases will be for some years, with many having a resale value, waste does not really work in this situation.
    I would agree that we are not achieving expectation but wasted, lets also be aware... we are joint 4th, considering we have had a rocky start, we're not doing so bad...

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  25. Agree. My local team Cardiff bought Corneilias from that league I believe, looked great over there but didnt get a sniff here.. Sold him back at a loss and he scores a hat-trick on his return game!

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  26. Man I hope this is true. We could use the help up top. Hope we also put some effort into defense as well.

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  27. I would pick Griezmann over Markovic any day of the week. I'm still holding out hope that Markovic will come good. I mean, his name is freaking Lazar. That's pretty cool.

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  28. Nevergonnacrackthecode1:51 pm, October 24, 2014

    whats going on with lfc?
    £7 a month for that channel when the only exciting part is match day special

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  29. Nevergonnacrackthecode1:53 pm, October 24, 2014

    odegaard,roberts,will hughes , delle alli all big lfc fans


    ....................................................sterling
    roberts.........................................odegaard..................ibe
    ...........................................will hughes.......delle alli




    we can build that young team

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  30. Nevergonnacrackthecode1:55 pm, October 24, 2014

    it might be expensive now but thats what man u fans thought about c ronaldo


    next two season he can stay on loan at his club
    then one year on loan at a strong europen league
    tehn he comes into lfc


    look how much we benefited from sterling

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  31. ENOUGH OF YOUNG PLAYERS

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  32. good story, hope you get back to BPL soon :)
    by the way how is Burgstaller doing at cardiff?


    He was one of my favourites in the austrian Bundesliga!

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  33. welcome back mate! we've been missing you

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  34. so valdes is training with man utd now ?

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  35. He was always here.. Isnt that right- 'Loss of Suarez'..

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  36. If he goes to Utd, I will have serious dilemmas about Rodgers in the transfer market.

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  37. i was being sarcastic ;-)

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  38. Jamie u kept on slating BR, as if its fault da d players r yet 2 perform,ow mani big name player did he sign just luk at van gaal at manu who spent 160mil on players I mean established players wit d most expensive squad in PL nd yet de r struggling,despite d fact dat de av no champ leag futball we r stil toping dem so pls its enough let BR do is job nd stop dis slating

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  39. i think its about time we admit defeat on the transfer front. the staggering failure to get world class players cannot be entirely placed at the feet of an individual like Ian Ayre for example. no one huge wants to come here. we are not that attractive a club. how else can we explain the sheer number of quality players we missed out on ? certainly does not seem like a lack of effort on our part. gotta start from scratch every time till we attain consistent success.

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  40. we should sign all the messis too!! Ryan gauld (scottish) Asu (ghanaian)
    Who knows, being the international barca might benefit us anytime in the future...
    If the spanish football federation excludes barca of the BBVA in case of a catalan secession we might be able playing in the BBVA and get suarez back

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  41. the thing is nobody cares any longer who won the CL 2005, and Rodgers is still an unfamiliar manager outside of England...
    ManU on the other side are willing to splash out the cash for silly wages, they have a prestigious manager and despite being utter sh*te atm, they won quite a lot in the last 5 years

    However it seems like our club has no idea how to spend money well on players... why we ignored players like Griezmann etc and went for untested u21 players for the same price is beyond me

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  42. thats the thing.. i dont think we ignore good players and make the obviously stupid choice. although in greizman's case it was possibly true. we do have a good eye for talent and we approach good players. but most of the media makes it look like we tried to get the player on the cheap and dithered around about his wages and what not that another clever team swooped in to get the player. i feel most of the time its the player not wanting to join us that is causing these excruciating delays in negotiations and when a team of his choice comes in he cant wait to sign for them. there will obviously be other cases. but i think this is the biggest reason to our failure in the transfer market.

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  43. "The lure of London" bull again.
    Arsenal have been crap at winning titles of late, but have been far, far more consistent than your club. We have better players and a better manager. And we are in the CL (albeit only to make up the numbers lately) year after year. Not to mention more global income, stadium etc.
    Why on earth can some LFC fans not accept the truth? Alexis Sanchez himself gave his reasons for moving to AFC, and location was not one of them.
    You will never have success without humility. LFC are only now creeping back towards where Arsenal have competed for years on end.
    Nonetheless, best of luck for the rest of the season - any squad who can compete with the endless wealth of the oil clubs is worthy of respect.

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  44. With respect, please can you drop the txt spk and write in proper sentences. Any further posts like this will be deleted. Sorry, but txt spk is outlawed on this site.

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  45. We could've bought 2-3 proven players with the Suarez cash, brought more of the talent that's in the youth team onto the bench give them 20 minutes hear and there and cup matches and give the players that went close last year the chance to do better. Also as part of the Suarez deal I would have insisted Sanchez was part of the deal or no deal, Barca could've played hardball with Sanchez. We are constantly weak in the transfer market. If Chelsea want a player, they don't mess around, they get him. Markovic, in my opinion, was a spite Chelsea transfer, maybe for signing Willian last year? After signing Lallana we shouldn't have got Markovic as well. There was plenty of pace, creativity and attacking movement with Suso, Ibe, Lallana, Sterling, Coutinho, Sturridge (Borini is not useless) (Remy would've been useful signing for 8m) to worry most teams. With the lure of CL football Reus, Sanchez and De Griezmann would've replaced Suarez more than adequately and probably could've done the deals at £110m tops this would help to attract better players down the line and we still could've got Moreno and Manquillo but what do I know?

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  46. You're right of course, the purchasing policy of Chelsea differs from us, also the fact that Abramovich seems to have seemingly limited funds so the manager can buy whoever he wants, which tends to be players in their prime with some youngsters which they loan back out, which we are only now doing with Origi. Yes we have to be more careful with the money we spend, and yes we've likely overpaid on more than one occasion, but the big clubs, the haves they would pay something similar and not bat an eyelid. It's a sad state of affairs that to be competitive in the transfer market, a certain inflation has to be countenanced.

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  47. Cornelius -Danish league, Odegaard - Norwgian League

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  48. Why put a full international in the U18S?

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  49. Yes he rejected them , he wanted to finish school in Norway

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  50. My tip for what's doing to happen. Liverpool buys him in the nest transfer window for £5 Mill, then he goes on loan to Celtic for rest of 14/15 season.

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  51. totally agreee with you on that point. balo cant play as a lone striker, he said it himself, so why does this happen?

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  52. You can't win anything with kids

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  53. No transfer can be wrong like Carroll and later Downing. Balotelli transfer is less then half of Carroll's 4 year ago!

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  54. Not to mention that with all this stuff about him being an LFC fan, if down the line we do go after him, he'll be just as likely to say yes. There's no time crunch to get this guy. We do however have some things we have to deal with right now...

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  55. i liked the looks of yesil before he was injured i didnt realise he was still at liverpool

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  56. Harry Wilson is a full international but he's nowhere near ready for our first team

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  57. But not on merit hence he hasn't played since the one cap he got over a year ago. Odegaard has now got 2 caps on merit, the last international he didn't play, most Norwegians including the press was outraged that he didn't play. You don't get that with Wilson although I think he will get his first league game this season.

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