Sverre Nypan is the mighty Norway prospect Aston Villa hope to sign

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A version of this article was first published in January 2025

Sverre Nypan jumps off the page. After Erling Haaland, Martin Odegaard and Antonio Nusa, Norway has another mighty prospect.

Nypan is an 18-year-old midfielder who became the youngest player in Rosenborg’s history when he debuted for the club at 15 years and 322 days old in 2022. He grew up in Trondheim, playing academy football locally for Nardo, before joining Rosenborg in 2022. They are the city’s biggest club and, historically, the most successful side in Norwegian football.

Nypan was training with their first team at 14. He did not displace Odegaard as the youngest player in Eliteserien history — the Arsenal captain was 15 years and 118 days when he made his first appearance in Norway’s top flight for Stromsgodset in 2014 — but his progress is similarly remarkable.

Nypan is a Manchester United supporter and in the summer of 2024, he gave a beguiling performance against them in a pre-season friendly, creating a ripple of excitement. Inevitably, that 45-minute spell has been condensed into a YouTube highlight reel.

Eight goals for Rosenborg during the 2024 season and a team-leading six assists helped him quickly capture the national interest — and the interest of big clubs across Europe, too. Aston Villa, Arsenal and Girona all held talks with Nypan in the winter and it is Villa who now hope to finalise a move for him.

“He’s an attacking midfielder who we’re getting quite excited about in Norway,” says Lars Sivertsen, a journalist and broadcaster. “He’s a fairly typical modern attacking midfielder, who has played mostly as a No 8 in a 4-3-3, and who is very good at finding spaces. He has great close control and can play quick passes or dribble if there’s an opportunity.”

Direct comparisons with Odegaard are tempting and not unreasonable, but Nypan is a more all-round midfielder. He can pass, carry, create and score goals, too, but he tends to occupy more areas of the pitch. Nypan is more of a No 8 (central midfielder), less of a No 10 (attacking midfielder), and plays with fewer flourishes.

“He’s maybe not as spectacular as Odegaard was when he was young,” Sivertsen tells The Athletic, “but he’s a very impressive player all the same.”

And it is easy to be impressed by Nypan’s craft on the ball.

In the passage below, taken from a game against Kristiansund in December 2024, he can be seen receiving the ball on the edge of the box, before identifying space for an overlapping team-mate and threading a smart through ball beyond the defensive line with his second touch.

A Premier League scout, who has been granted anonymity to protect relationships, is impressed — not just by the player’s talent but also how Nypan has adapted since making his debut.

“For his age, he’s great,” the scout tells The Athletic, “and he’s also physically more developed than he was when we first looked at him a couple of years ago. I don’t know if he’s actually put on weight but it looks like it when he carries the ball.

“His dribbling can be a bit loose. He doesn’t always protect the ball well and his body control is not there yet, but that will tighten up in time.”

The passage below against Haugesund provides a good example of that. Nypan collects the ball, carrying it forward despite the attention of several defenders. The slight looseness described by the scout can be seen, but so too can the skill and attacking intent. He evades the defenders with a cute drag-back and takes quick touches before playing another slide-rule pass beyond the defensive line.

Figuratively, Nypan is broad-shouldered. That is a result, Sivertsen says, of just how much experience he has relative to his age — nearly 4,000 minutes in Norway’s top flight, all logged before he turned 18 in December. Odegaard had just over 2,000 senior club minutes at a similar age.

“What stands out to me is how much football he’s played already,” Sivertsen says.

“He’s 18 and he’s been a regular for Rosenborg for two full seasons. When he made his debut, he played two full 90 minutes as a 15-year-old in central midfield. The Norwegian league is not the strongest in the world but a 15-year-old playing central midfield against grown men is quite something.

“And the context for that is that he’s doing it for Rosenborg. They used to be one of the most successful clubs in Norway. It’s still a big club where there’s a lot of pressure, so he’s playing for something of a troubled giant.

“The 2023 season was a rough one. They’ve improved and by the end of the 2024 season, they were playing well and grabbed a European spot. You might not think of Norwegian football as one of the great pressure cookers in world sport but playing for a struggling Rosenborg team is tough. So, putting a teenager into the middle of that and asking him to be the guy in central midfield is a huge ask.”

Nypan seems to have embraced that challenge. There is no meekness to his game. His tackling technique can be wild — watch enough of his challenges and one will eventually make you wince — but the willingness to be physical with bigger, older opponents is encouraging, particularly if his future lies in a more attritional league.

The clip below shows a challenge he made in a home game against Odd in July 2024. With a ball-carrier attempting to run through the Rosenborg midfield, Nypan — who scored the game’s opening goal before assisting his side’s second — upends the player with a fierce challenge, creating the potential for a counter-attack in the other direction.

There is plenty of attacking instinct in his game. He has an instinctive feel for movement in the penalty box, evidenced by his assist numbers, but also great timing when making runs to get on the end of moves. Another scout, one from a major Italian club, is impressed with that aspect of his game. He also notes Nypan’s overall development over the past season and is curious about his long-term position.

“He is very attack-minded for a No 8 and crashes the box really well,” the scout tells The Athletic. “But his defensive game has taken a step up in 2024, so we’re unsure whether he’ll develop as a 10 or an 8. A lot of that depends on where he moves to.”

That will be the next question. The indications are that Nypan is handling the attention in a mature, calm way. He has frequently been asked about the appearance of scouts at Rosenborg’s games — including from Manchester United — but has repeatedly shut down talk of his future with a veteran’s stock answers.

“He focuses on enjoying and practising football every day,” Alfred Johansson, Rosenborg’s head coach, told TV2 in late 2024. “It’s very impressive and that’s how it should be, but not everyone would have managed it. That’s strong of Sverre.”

When he came to prominence, Odegaard jumped straight to the top of the game, moving to Real Madrid and then accepting a succession of loans to realise his potential. As reported by The Athletic in January, Odegaard’s current club Arsenal attempted to persuade his compatriot to join. Haaland — who, like Nypan, is represented by the agent Rafaela Pimenta — took smaller strides, moving from Bryne to Molde to Red Bull Salzburg and then to Borussia Dortmund, before arriving at Manchester City.

What route Nypan takes is still to be confirmed but Villa are now optimistic about his desire to join them.

(Photo: Mark Scates/SNS Group via Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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