Martin Odegaard's love affair with Arsenal goes back a long way before he first signed for the club in 2021. In fact it even goes back further than his infamous meeting with Arsene Wenger at the age of 16.
"I've always had this weird connection to Arsenal. It started long before I signed," he tells The Players' Tribune. "I don't even really know how to explain it, except with one little story. I've never been that much into video games. I am of that generation that always played outside, but the one exception was FIFA . I mostly played Career Mode. You know, where you get to be the manager? The club I always chose to manage was Arsenal. They were my FIFA team.
"Growing up in Norway, I watched a lot of Premier League and I just had this good feeling about Arsenal. I’d seen clips of Thierry Henry and the Invincibles. I knew the club had a history of developing playmakers like Fabregas, Nasri, Ozil - really smart, technical players, who were good on the ball and played the difficult passes. My kind of players.
