If you thought Thomas Vermaelen’s nine-month wait for his Barcelona bow was long, the Belgian has nothing on Martin Ødegaard.
Vermaelen eventually got game-time for the Catalan club at the tail end of the 2014/15 season after a long injury-enforced absence, but Ødegaard is showing that this sort of thing happens on both sides of the Clásico divide.
The Norwegian joined Los Blancos from Strømsgodset in January 2015 but has managed just one substitute appearance to date (though he has turned out for his country in the meantime).
That changed tonight, though, with Ødegaard starting the Copa Del Rey clash with Segunda B outfit Cultural Leonesa.
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The world has become a very different place since Ødegaard traded Norway for Madrid, with the likes of Alex Iwobi, Marcus Rashford and Kelechi Iheanacho all making their professional debuts in the meantime.
When he joined the Spanish club, they were playing in the same league as a Real Sociedad team managed by David Moyes, while Gary Neville has been appointed and dismissed by Valencia in the intervening period.
As for Madrid themselves, they have scored more than 250 goals since Ødegaard’s arrival, including seven in the first leg against tonight’s lower-league opponents.
They added six in the cup game, including one from Zinedine Zidane’s son Enzo, to go through 13-2 on aggregate.
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