The journey from a sparkling prospect to a player genuinely mentioned in the same breath as the Ballon d'Or is a treacherous one. Most don't make it....
The journey from a sparkling prospect to a player genuinely mentioned in the same breath as the Ballon d'Or is a treacherous one. Most don't make it. They get stuck at 'promising'. They become victims of a system or the weight of expectation. But something is shifting around Michael Olise. After a first international hat trick against Northern Ireland, the whispers have turned into a proper roar. You don't just happen to score three on your senior bow for France. That takes nerve. That takes a coldness that separates the gifted from the great.Louis Saha, a man who knows a thing or two about finishing for Les Bleus, has thrown his weight behind the Crystal Palace star. And when a former international striker puts you in the Ballon d'Or picture, you need to sit up and listen. Saha isn't just blowing smoke. He sees the tactical flexibility. Olise isn't a one trick pony who hugs the touchline. He drifts. He picks up pockets of space between a low block and the midfield. He has that rare ability to look languid, almost uninterested, then explode into a burst of clinical finishing that catches the goalkeeper cold. Against Northern Ireland, he didn't just score. He dominated the transitional play. He was the release valve and the executioner rolled into one.What makes this more than just a flash in the pan is the context. France are not short of attacking talent. They have Kylian Mbappe, they have Ousmane Dembele, they have Marcus Thuram. But Olise offers something different. He offers a pure, almost old school number ten quality, but with the legs to hurt you on the break. He can drop deep and dictate, or he can run in behind and finish with his left foot. That is not a combination you find in the supermarket. That is a bespoke talent. Is he ready to win the golden ball this year No. Of course not. But to be in the picture, to be part of the conversation before the turn of the year, that is a statement of intent.The challenge now is consistency. It is one thing to pull on the famous blue kit and score a hat trick against a limited Northern Ireland side. It is another to do it in a World Cup quarterfinal when the grass is cut long and the crowd is hostile. But the raw material is there. The finishing is there. The football brain is there. If Olise keeps his head down and his hamstrings healthy, we might be looking at the first true Ballon d'Or contender to emerge from that Palace academy. And that, for a boy who grew up in London but chose to represent France, is a hell of a story.
