Carlo Ancelotti admits one of the main threats to Brazil’s chances of winning the World Cup is represented by a player whose signing he once described as a ‘PR exercise’.
The legendary Italian manager is currently in charge of the Selecao and is masterminding their World Cup campaign.
Brazil reached the last 16 after topping their group, before requiring a last-minute goal from Gabriel Martinelli to oust Japan in the last round.
The Arsenal forward is set to be rewarded for his matchwinning exploits with a place in the starting XI this evening when he will take on his club colleague Martin Odegaard.
Don’t miss a World Cup moment
What a rollercoaster this has been. Make sense of the drama with Metro’s free daily newsletter, featuring England updates, match previews and exclusive analysis. Sign up now.
With the Gunners skipper at the heart of his side’s midfield, Martinelli knows only too well how much of a danger his teammate can be as does Ancelotti.
The 67-year-old when Odegaard signed for Real Madrid as a teenager but was unwilling to give a player with such limited experience a chance to shine in his star-studded team.
Indeed, he infamously blamed Florentino Perez for Odegaard’s failure at the Bernabeu after the club president moved heaven and earth to sign a player who was wanted at the time by all of European football’s heavyweight sides.
‘When Florentino buys a Norwegian footballer, you simply have to accept it,’ he wrote in his autobiography Quiet Leadership.
‘Furthermore, the president decided that he would play three games with the first team as a public relations exercise.
‘He could be the best player in the world, but I don’t care because he was not a player who I asked for. That signing was to do with PR.’
More than a decade on and Odegaard has finally fulfilled his potential at Arsenal following a series of loan move and comes face-to-face again with a manager who deemed him surplus to requirements.
‘We signed [him] when he was 16,’ Ancelotti said in his pre-match press conference. ‘Real Madrid, [he] was a really talented player, talented kid, was 16.
‘I think he developed really well. It took time because he went in a lot of teams and now I think he found a really good situation in Arsenal.
‘He is a key player for Arsenal and then he is showing his quality, the same quality that he had when he was 16.
‘Add to the quality the knowledge, of course. Really intelligent player. He knows really well the situation of the game, so one of the key players of Norway.’