If Harry Kane’s goal at Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu didn’t surprise, Michael Olise’s dominance on the right flank did.
Until that evening, the Frenchman was not considered a contender for the Ballon d’Or, but now everything is changing before our eyes.
Olize is shocking with his statistics, quality of dribbling, vision of the field.
Open the western sports press – Michael is everywhere now!
The champion talks about a player who is rewriting the history of Bayern right now.
***
Poor, poor Alvaro Carreras.
The first quarter-final of the Champions League between Real and Bayern will be remembered for a long time by the left defender of “Vershkovy”. Such “destructions” do not often occur at the top level.
Sometimes it seemed that Olize did not notice him.
“An outstanding match! Incredible skill! As a football player, I really like him. Michael is a special winger, and if he continues like this, he will have a chance for the Ballon d’Or,” – assures Luis Figo, who knows all about dribbling on the wing.
On the field of Real, Oliseh did not score, but he pulled everyone on himself and gave the goal to Harry Kane – his 6th in 10 matches of the Champions League.
Michael touched the ball an incredible 82 times for a winger; won 10 out of 15 single combats; 4 of his 7 strokes were successful.
According to rumors, Alvaro Arbeloa is preparing a special plan “under Olise” because he is afraid of what might happen in Munich.
He reads analytics and knows what usually happens there.
***
Oliseh is the best assist in the top league right now with 29 assists.
The 21st century record shared by Xavi Hernandez and Henrikh Mkhitaryan is 3 more assists away.
Also with 17 goals, Michael is one of three players in Europe’s top leagues to have scored 15+15 this season, joining Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal and fellow Bayern Munich winger Luis Diaz.
At the same time, if Diaz is a vertical player, aiming for a rush, Olize creates the game as a playmaker. He is in 2nd place in Europe in terms of assists (107, of which 91 are from the game). Only real player Arda Güler (108) has more. At the same time, the Frenchman is more efficient than his competitors – as many as 23.4% of his passes under the shot turn into goals. This is partly the effect of Harry Kane – the best finisher in the top league right now.
On the other hand, Oliseh is on her own as well as she can. He is in the top 5 in Europe for successful dribbles (96), behind only Jan Diomande of Leipzig (104), Vinicius of Real Madrid (109), Jeremy Dok of Man City (116) and the same to Lamin Yamal (200). The percentage of successful strokes is as much as 45.5%, which is higher than in Vienna (41.1).
Olize and the Brazilian are also the best in terms of self-earned fouls near someone else’s penalty area – 28 and 44, respectively.
But there is a fundamental difference between them – if Viney is not the most active when defending his goal, then Oliseh is among the top 10 strikers in Europe in terms of goals scored in the final third of the field (30).
Do you understand now?
Bayern have perhaps the best assistant in a generation, who can also run the game, scores a lot, feints well and is good defensively as a midfielder.
Coach Vincent Kompany assureswho had already seen something similar when he played at Man City:
“I don’t want to compare, because they’re different, but I saw how Kevin de Bruyne grew. How he grew from a young talent to a superstar. He had this obsession with details, and Michael has that.”
***
And don’t you think that all this happened somehow too quickly? Usually superstars grow and are discussed longer than Kane himself…
Well, that’s because Oliseh moved to Bayern just from Crystal Palace in 2024.
Yes, for 60 million euros.
Yes, he had a good one the press in the Premier League
But at that time, Olize had not played a single minute for a top club at an adult level, and no one knew how he would cope. It was a big risk for Max Eberl and Christian Freund, who had just taken the reins of Bayern, What faltered after Bayer’s championship and the disgraceful reign of Oliver Kahn and Hasan Salihamidzic.
Oliseh was certainly talented and when he was on the pitch he created 44% of all Crystal Palace scoring chances, 40% of assists and 45% of all crosses.
In the last 13 matches of the 2023 season/24 he scored 9 goals and gave 5 assists for the Eagles – with the active support of one such Eberecha Eze.
At the same time, it was not by chance that Oliseh was ignored by the English giants for years. In Munich, they understood this already at the presentation, where Olize answered all questions with one or two words.
“Goals or assists? Everything.”
“I will answer you on the field.”
“My goal is to have something to say after the matches. I’m working on it.”
For this approach Bild his todand scattered, but later calmed down. It wasn’t disrespectful; Olize is always like that. He’s really weird off the field.
***
In 2009, when he was 8, Oliseh was expelled from the Arsenal school.
In 2016, already 14-year-old Michael was expelled from the Chelsea academy.
Another six months later, Manchester City School was also ordered to pack up.
None of the three clubs would comment afterwards on what happened, but there were rumors that Oliseh was impossible to work with and he was conflicted in every dressing room; had no friends anywhere.
Ex-Chelsea scout Sean Conlon saw everything with his own eyes, because Oliseh grew up nearby in an area in west London.
Bukayo Saka also grew up there. Already at the age of 9-10, he and Olize arranged battles, which were attended by dozens of adults.
“I’ve always said that from the age of 9, Michael was the best player of his age in the country. He was always very graceful and elegant in his movements. At Chelsea School he was taught technique and as he got older the football skills started to show IQ“, – assures Conlon.
When Oliseh was expelled from the big academies, it was Sean who took him under his wing and began betting on matches with semi-amateurs, recording every action on video.
Well, it was he who contributed the most to the fact that Michael was accepted by Reading in 2016.
Not a grandee, not an average peasant. Reading!
And before that – half a year of tournaments in the mud, so that at least someone would take the risk of taking a troubled teenager.
“If I had a traditional path, I would be a different person. But the challenges should be taken as lessons. We carried the balls and washed our uniforms ourselves. Less dribbling, more punches and jerks. Terrible fields. It helped me later.” admits lick
***
Roughly speaking, he should have learned to coexist with people.
Olize is far from a fool; from IQ 127 he has good analytical skills. He also likes chess and often wins games.
“Michael is constantly looking for new strategies. He has books on tactics at home, he looks them up on the Internet. He is a very thorough person in everything,” – says his close friend.
Michael’s problem for a long time was a lack of understanding of the importance of the team in football. He is an introvert, focused on himself. Team? What other team?
“Olise emphasized his talent from the first minute. He easily controlled the ball, behaved confidently, sought to receive passes in narrow areas. He was different from us,” – reminds Reading defender Tom McIntyre.
He would have been kicked out again in some big club, but such talents rarely get to Reading, so they got bored. The coaches sometimes sent Olize to the double, then put him as a defender so that he would look at the rough work differently.
As for behavioral nuances, they decided to turn a blind eye to them.
“Olyse can be difficult to understand. He may not shake your hand or not notice you for a while, and then communicate in the most pleasant way. This character of his repelled many people,” – admits McIntyre.
He recalls how a glass bottle was thrown at Michael in a cup match against Millwall and he just looked sadly at the man who threw it and walked away. Emotions like after Diphenhydramine.
And there was also the fact that it was in the middle of the 2020 season/21 Olize unsubscribed from almost all his teammates without any reason.
What are they? They were silent.
In the same season-2020/21 Oliseh issued 7+12, was recognized as the best young player of the Championship and brought 9 million pounds to the coffers of Reading.
***
That’s why Bayern relatively easily won the competition for him from Arsenal, Chelsea and City – Oliseh was simply known and feared there.
And that’s how the people of Munich broke the bank.
The years have benefited the winger. At 24, he still does not have an individual sponsor, because he is not interested, but it is easier is going contact:
“When I played my first year as a professional, I realized that football is a little different than what I imagined. Seriously. I realized, I saw people… They achieved more than me. I didn’t do anything yet, I just came. So I started working really hard.
And now… Have the image of me that seems most true to you. Football taught me that you have to keep doing what you think is right. And it starts, first of all, with one important thing for me: to always be authentic.”
By God, it is difficult to find a more authentic player than Oliseh! He is at the same time a product of big schools, where he learned tactics, but also street football – and from there his dribbling.
Well, he, who grew up in Geiza, considers himself French and plays for the French national team!
The irony is that Olize’s mother is half French, half Algerian, and his father is from Nigeria. The guy grew up in London, but all the holidays conducted on the continent with grandparents:
“I’ve wanted to play for Le Bleu since I was a kid. It’s such an honor to go there and wear this shirt. As I remember now, the first call from Didier Deschamps. I was more excited than scared. I knew a few guys like Manu Kone. Great team, young. We want to win together.”
He started in France with silver at the 2024 Olympics, and then became one of the leaders of the generation that will go to the USA for the trophy. Desiree Doue, Ousmane Dembele, Ryan Sherky, Kylian Mbappé – they have an abnormally talented attack.
Well, but first Real Madrid and the Champions League.
Olizeh, it seems, is not nervous at all. On his leg is stamped the mantra: “Every day a little more.” So he is lives:
“I am very focused but relaxed and I like to enjoy what I do. In everyday life and in football. I enjoy the little things in life and live in the moment.”
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