That buzz has long since abated. All of the noise that surrounded Odegaard for a year has disappeared. Soccer, impatient, has moved on to other prodigies. As Odegaard — still just 19, still baby-faced — dutifully signs autographs and poses for pictures on a bitterly cold night in this city in the north of the Netherlands, it is impossible not to think that he is a long way from Real Madrid, a long way from where he was meant to be, and to wonder whether moving to the biggest team in the world was too much, too soon.

“It is impossible to answer that question,” Tore Pedersen, a former Norwegian international defender, said when asked whether Odegaard could have found a more direct route to his goals by choosing another of his suitors. Pedersen, now an agent, consulted on Odegaard’s moves to both Madrid and Heerenveen.

Of far more significance — to Odegaard and to those concerned with his career — is that he is, now, in the right place to nurture his talent. In two years at Real Madrid, he made only one start for the first team, in the Copa del Rey. Carlo Ancelotti, the club’s former manager, dismissed his signing as a “PR stunt.”

Zidane, who coached him on the B team, would not go that far, but he also did not draft Odegaard into the senior team when he was named manager. In January last year, Odegaard decided he needed an “intermediate step,” the chance to play competitive games somewhere.