THE WORLD CUP became something of a centre-back marketplace for Brighton, but what about the one that got away: Leo Østigård of Norway.

Østigård was only ever on the fringe of Albion’s first team and spent the majority of his time under contract with the club on loan in the Championship or Europe.

Yet he has since won more than 40 caps for his country and he was so committed to Ståle Solbakken’s Norway squad in the United States that he watched his partner, Aurora Eidmann, give birth to their son on a video call!

“I’m totally exhausted, but it was really fantastic,” Østigård told The Sun’s Emillia Hawkins. “She did an amazing job. I was not able to say that much. The only thing I could do was to support her and help her do the job. I’m so proud.

“It’s difficult to understand it. When I saw him for the first time, I broke down. I’m so happy and proud. The greatest thing I ever experienced. No doubt.”

The birth came a few days after Østigård scored in Norway’s 4-1 Group I win over Iraq (when Manchester City’s Erling Haaland got a brace). A sub in the 3-2 win over Senegal, Østigård returned to the starting line-up for the 4-1 defeat to France.

He sat out the last 32 win over Ivory Coast and moments after going on as a 95^th minute sub against Brazil in the last 16 match conceded a penalty that Neymar converted.

Østigård plays his club football at Genoa, the fourth club he was on loan to from Brighton (in the second half of the 2021-22 season), although he’s had three other clubs (Napoli, Rennes and TSG Hoffenheim) since departing the Seagulls.

Albion bought him from Norwegian Eliteserien side Molde FK when he was 18, initially to link up with Simon Rusk’s under-23 squad.

At that point he’d already represented his country multiple times at under 16, 17, 18 and 19 levels. He subsequently played for the under 20s and under 21s and made his full international debut in March 2022.

Born in the small Norwegian town of Åndalsnes (at the mouth of the River Rauma and at the foot of the Romsdalshorn and Trollveggen mountains) on 28 November 1999, his father captained the local team and the young Østigård got his first taste of football on a pitch a three-minute bike ride from his house.

“When I was 14 or 15, I started training with the first team, and I travelled by bus every day after school to Molde (1 hour 15 minutes’ drive), to play for one of the best clubs in Norway,” he told ligue1.com in an October 2024 interview. “At 16, I finished school in Åndalsnes and moved to Molde with my sister (Rikke), in an apartment.”

He was in the Molde youth team that won the Norwegian Junior Cup two years in a row and, having stepped up to the reserves, at 16 knocked on first team manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s door threatening to leave unless he was involved in first team training.

“A week later, I was training with them. I became captain in pre-season at 17,” he said. “He (Solskjaer) liked me after that meeting, because he saw that I wanted something. If I hadn’t gone to his office, I might never have had this opportunity.”

During his first season at Brighton, he played 12 Premier League Two games (and scored twice in a PL2 victory over West Ham United in December) and Brian Owen of The Argus observed how assured Østigård looked playing alongside Ben White and Ben Barclay in Albion’s Checkatrade Trophy win (on penalties) over Peterborough in October 2018.

He was selected on the bench for a 2-1 fifth round FA Cup win over Derby County in February 2019, hoping it might lead to more involvement with the first team.

Fellow under-21 Viktor Gyökeres did get on as a late sub for goalscorer Jurgen Locadia but Østigård wasn’t called on. Nevertheless, he told the matchday programme: “It’s always good to be involved with the first team; I’ve trained a little bit with them now and I feel good – it’s a step up, but to be in the stadium with nearly 25,000 people was great and a fantastic experience.

“For a Norwegian player to come over to England and be involved with a Premier League team is really good, and obviously makes me very proud.

“I know that a lot of people from Norway are watching me and keeping track of my progress, so it’s always great to be involved in such a big team – football is massive in this country and it’s fantastic.”

He captained Norway at the under-20 World Cup in Poland that summer and caught the eye of the watching media. Owen of The Argus found magazine France Football purring over the young defender for his solid duels and keen passing, noting that his capability for extremely precise long balls showed real technical ability.

Østigård’s first loan away from Brighton was a season-long switch to Bundesliga 2 side FC St Pauli (the German club Fabian Hürzeler coached before Brighton).

His under-23 coach Rusk said: “This is an excellent loan move for Leo and one which comes at the right time for him. I’m sure he’ll learn valuable lessons from a tough season in the Bundesliga 2.

“Leo works extremely hard on the training pitch and his commitment to improve is clear to see, which is always great to see from a player of his age.”

It wasn’t long before he played a part in St Pauli’s first Hamburg derby win in 59 years, when they beat their city rivals 2-0 at the Millerntor Stadium.

“It was fantastic and definitely the best atmosphere I’ve ever played in,” he said. “It was a bit of shock for me because it’s a huge derby game.

“I’m 19 and still relatively new to the club so I had to just try to do my best and not think about everything around the game, but of course it was superb, and everything was so memorable.

“You have to be there to really get a feel for how crazy the fans were. It’s a new step for me and now I know how it feels to play in front of 30,000 passionate fans. I’ll learn a lot from that and it’s exactly what I need at this stage of my career.”

He made a total of 28 appearances for the German club before returning to the UK and being sent on loan to Coventry City for the 2020-21 season. Announcing his “exciting signing”, manager Mark Robins said: “He’s a player with brilliant pedigree, he’s one of the top players for his age in European football.”

When Andy Naylor of The Athletic caught up with the confident young defender in February 2021, he had just been reunited at the Sky Blues with Gyökeres (who’d also been on loan at St Pauli and had spent the first half of the season on loan at Swansea City).

Unfortunately, not only were they not able to play at Coventry’s home ground because of a dispute with the landlord of the Ricoh Arena, when they played at Birmingham’s St Andrew’s it was empty because of the Covid ban on fans.

“To not play on your home ground is a weird feeling,” Østigård told Naylor. “They have some flags on the stands but I remember the feeling last year at Millerntor in St Pauli, it was incredible; so like home. It was hard for teams playing against us to win. It’s not the same here now. I miss that, of course.”

The youngster was forthright too about where his career was going vis a vis Brighton. “I don’t want to just sit on the bench or have no chance of playing,” he said. “I am not at Brighton to sit on the bench. That’s not the point for me.

“I need to be sold or to sign a new contract. I’ve been very honest with them and they know they can’t lie to me or just say the right things. If they don’t need me, it’s better for me to go elsewhere.”

Østigård had a few minutes with the first team during pre-season friendlies ahead of the 2021-22 season, playing the second half of a 0-0 draw with Rangers at Ibrox and going on as a 58^th minute sub for Dan Burn in a 3-1 win at Luton. He only got on in the dying seconds of the home 2-0 defeat to Getafe, replacing Joel Veltman.

He signed a new one-year deal with the Albion but with the likes of Lewis Dunk, Adam Webster, Shane Duffy, Burn and Veltman ahead of him was then promptly loaned to Stoke City in the Championship for another season-long deal.

Brighton head coach Graham Potter said: “Leo has spent pre-season with the first team here and has demonstrated how much his game has developed during his time with Coventry.

“This move to Stoke will hopefully see him play regularly and continue with his progression.”

Østigård told Stoke’s website: “Maybe you have to take the risk and stay at Brighton but right now at my age I just want to play as many games as I can.

“That has been the case for the last two or three years now. I just love to play games and that is my main thing. I feel it is a very good step for me to play another season in the Championship for Stoke.”

Interviewed by Peter Smith of the Stoke Sentinel in September 2021, Østigård said: “When Michael O’Neill got in touch, I was convinced that I could become a part of something really good here at Stoke. He had a plan for the club – and a clear plan for me. My goal is to help the club reach its goal – which is to get back on top.

“I want to give absolutely everything for the fans. That is how I want to be perceived.”

Although he made 14 starts and one sub appearance, he fell out of favour and didn’t play again after November 24, with O’Neill saying: “We felt Leo wasn’t really the type of player we wanted just in terms of building the game.”

However, Stoke fan Rob Salt maintained: “One of the biggest mistakes we made was not signing him permanently. He is a class defender and always wears his heart on his sleeve when he plays.”

With his Stoke loan cut short in January 2022, he spent the remainder of the season at Andriy Shevchenko’s Genoa, who slipped to relegation from Serie A.

Østigård observed: “It was completely different again because I was used to the rain and the cold. I felt like a new person because I saw the sun in the morning!”

While in Italy, he caught the eye of Napoli and they bought him from Brighton that July. The fee may have been undisclosed but wearebrighton.com reckoned it might have been as high as £10m for a player said to have cost £100,000, pointing out: “Brighton’s policy of signing young players and developing them into coveted talents is one that works” and adding: “Disappointing though it is to lose a player with the potential to have a huge career ahead of him, Brighton have at least extracted a big fee from Napoli.”

 Albion’s then technical director David Weir said: “Leo’s had really successful loan spells in Germany, Italy and here in the UK in the Championship with Coventry City and Stoke City, so it was no surprise he attracted such interest from a top Italian club like Napoli.

“He is also keen to play regular senior football and establish himself as a permanent player. That was not something we were able to guarantee for Leo, so the transfer is good for both clubs and the player.”

He struggled to get starts at his new club but in October 2022 scored his first goal for Napoli as he helped secure a 3-0 Champions League win over Rangers – their 12th win in a row and 16th without defeat from the start of the season.

Although he valued the experience of being at such a big club, he was frustrated at too frequently watching from the sidelines. He told ligue1.com: “It was difficult, because it was the first time I didn’t play every game. I wasn’t used to it and I hated it.

“The first year, the results were excellent, we had no injuries, it was almost the same team in every game (Napoli won the title in 2023). So, it wasn’t easy to watch from the bench, but you have to stay professional. And when you play, you have to seize the opportunity. We won the championship for the first time in 33 years, it was incredible.”

After two years in Italy, next stop was Rennes (right) in France in July 2024 for €7,000,000 but six months later, after 18 Ligue 1 and French Cup appearances, he was on the move again, switching to Germany and Bundesliga side TSG Hoffenheim on loan.

“In Leo, we have found a centre-back with the qualities we were looking for in the final stretch of the winter transfer period,” said Andreas Schicker, TSG’s managing director of sport.

“Despite his young age, he is already an internationally experienced player. He is an uncompromising defender who doesn’t shy away from a duel. That’s why we’re convinced that Leo will give our game the stability we need.”

TSG just managed to avoid relegation and in July Østigård returned to Italy, and Genoa, initially on loan before the move was made permanent in January 2026.