NEW YORK — On Friday at lunch time, you could find Michael Olise around the big rectangular table where the France players take their meals on his own. It’s probably where he feels the best. While everyone else was still filling their plates with their favorite foods, the Bayern Munich winger had started eating his already!
“He loves being on his own, I love him. He is his own guy, and he’s an incredible player,” Rayan Cherki told ESPN before Les Bleus arrived in the U.S. — in Boston more specifically, where they will be based for the whole tournament.
Olise is special on and off the pitch. He’s not your usual superstar; for one, he flees the spotlights as much as possible. He hardly gives any interviews because he doesn’t like talking too much, especially to media. His talking, as he always says, is done on the pitch. The French language doesn’t really have an equivalent of the English expression “let you feet do the talking” but if it did, it would somehow be related to Olise. There is no other player who would represents this expression better.
There is a feeling within the France camp and its supporters that this will be Olise’s World Cup. The level that he has reached this season for club and country — whether you measure his 25 goals and 28 assists in 57 games for Bayern, or over one goal involvement per game, as well as five goals and one assist in his last nine caps for France — is exceptional. The former Crystal Palace winger, still only 24, is not just one of the best players in the world right now, but also one of the most decisive and impactful.
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Take his hat trick for France in their final warm-up friendly before the World Cup, a 3-1 win against Northern Ireland: Olise showed how devastating he can be with or without the ball. He was lethal, always in the right positions and always effective.
“He is shining, full of confidence and so clinical. We will need him at this level during the tournament,” France coach Didier Deschamps told ESPN after Les Bleus‘ pre-tournament camp. “He is very introverted, but he plays with such freedom and he has done everything to reach this level.”
Against Northern Ireland, Olise played off the right wing, like he does with Bayern. On the right, he can make full use of his skills and loves coming inside to impact the game. Yet it wasn’t always like this.
For more than year prior to the World Cup, Deschamps had been playing Olise as a more central attacking midfielder. As a No. 10, there is certainly more freedom for Olise to enjoy, but the debate in France has revolved around the fact that you should probably leave him in what is his best position; the one where he has become one of the best players in the world.
It is a good problem for Deschamps to have, as it’s vital for France’s tournament that he can find the right balance with his front four of Kylian Mbappé, Ousmane Dembélé, Désiré Doué and Olise. They need to understand each other’s games and movements to be able to exploit their incredible attacking potential.
When on form, there is no better front four at this World Cup, and Deschamps is confident that his quartet of stars will click quickly.
Deschamps was delighted when he learned that Olise, who was born in London to a French-Algerian mother and a Nigerian-English father, wanted to play for France. He could have picked any of the four countries in his family tree, but he grew up watching videos of Zinedine Zidane and Thierry Henry, and of France doing the double (World Cup in 1998, European Championship in 2000).
Olise only played in the Les Bleus‘ youth teams too, but Deschamps took a long time before eventually calling him up to the senior side. Deschamps has had an abundance of talent to call upon during his 14 years at the helm — he is stepping down as manager after this World Cup — but he’s rarely had a player like Olise. He just wanted to wait for the right time.
That time came in September 2024 against Italy in a 3-1 defeat, after Olise had impressed the former World Cup winner during the 2024 Olympic Games as Les Bleus made the most of his talents on their way to winning the silver medal. Now the question is for Deschamps to find the best place for him in this team so he can help France win a third World Cup.
We’ll see how successful his efforts are on Tuesday against Senegal in New Jersey.
