How Michael Olise became France's 'phenomenon': Two traits which stood out when he was seven, attitude issues which separated him from his peers - and why England and Chelsea missed out on 'freak' star

The footballer who forces us to first fall in love with the game usually carries a certain swagger.

Thierry Henry

had it, and that this idol for a 90s-born generation is so in awe of Michael Olise today should tell you this 24-year-old Frenchman is a fully-fledged member of the same club.

Kids want to watch him, follow him, copy him. Olise practically brings out the child in Henry, who happily describes the France international as a ‘freak’, ‘phenomenon’, ‘on another planet’, ‘different', and their ‘most important player’ – even with

Kylian Mbappe

in the same team that will take on Morocco in Thursday's World Cup quarter-final in Foxborough by Boston.

Everything seems so effortless, cool, and carefree. Yet Olise could so easily have been in

Kansas

City instead, with

England

, training alongside his

Bayern Munich

team-mate

Harry Kane

, preparing to play Norway in Miami this Saturday,

Thomas Tuchel

’s maverick and not Didier Deschamps’.

Olise was born in White City near Shepherd’s Bush and raised in Hayes near Heathrow, after all, with a French-Algerian mother called Mina and Nigerian father named Vincent. Olise’s younger brother, Richard, a 21-year-old with

Chelsea

’s academy, has represented England at youth level.

Yet Olise only ever had eyes for France. The attacker himself has explained how he simply felt a stronger connection when it came to choosing. He grew up a Francophile via his mother. He visited regularly, enjoyed their culture, liked learning the language, and grew up idolising Henry,

Zinedine Zidane

and Nicolas Anelka – so much that he envisioned himself wearing that blue shirt, too.

The French Football Federation were said to have contacted Olise first after being alerted to his eligibility. The Football Association may wish they had fought harder for Olise earlier on, given how he had your typical English footballer upbringing and was well known within the system. If only.

Some people, including Thierry Henry, consider Michael Olise to be France's star man

Olise (right) with coach Sean Conlon, his brother Richard and their dad Vincent during his academy days at Chelsea

He always felt more of an affinity with France than England... and he certainly fits their style!

Ask around in grassroots and you will find stories of Olise’s talents from his youth. They start when he was six years old and his parents clocked an advert in the local newspaper, the Hayes Gazette, seeking youngsters to start a new team. Olise joined, and there was one game where Hayes Youth were playing where his parents took a wrong turn on the drive.

They turned up at half-time and Hayes were losing 2-0. Olise came on, scored a hat-trick, and they won 3-2. Olise’s coach for Hayes Under 7s was called Michael Richards, who previously described the youngster as ‘on a completely different stratosphere’ when speaking with Daily Mail Sport.

There were always scouts sniffing around, asking to be introduced to Mina and Vincent. Bukayo Saka played for Greenford Celtic, around five miles away, and so he and Olise occasionally faced one another. While Saka joined Arsenal’s academy, Olise opted for Chelsea at the age of seven, and so it is not only within the England set-up where there are bound to be regrets.

Sean Conlon was the scout who recommended Olise to Chelsea while he also coached him individually via his company We Make Footballers, which specialises in developing youngsters aged four to 12. Conlon is a lovely chap, extremely proud of those he helped turn professional, and will only have positive comments to make on Olise if you ask him. Among them, you will hear how his ‘football IQ is at the highest level’ and that he was and is ‘unpredictable’ as a player.

Olise had to come through a trial with Chelsea in order to win a full invite into Cobham, however, and one source familiar with that 2009 audition tells an amusing story. Olise, aged seven at the time, supposedly wore a Manchester United shirt while trialling for Chelsea. Clearly, they did not mind too much, though it was in 2016 and at the age of 14 when Olise was let go.

One source who worked with Olise at Chelsea described that as a ‘mutual decision’ when asked, though others have claimed it was more of a club-led call, owing to attitude issues. We will give one circulated anecdote. Olise’s team-mates were doing their warm-up drills as usual, but he was separate to his peers, performing keepie-uppies. His coach told him to join his team-mates or head inside. Olise walked himself in after booting the ball into the air. It is worth noting that at least one other source from Chelsea described Olise to Daily Mail Sport as ‘a very polite boy’ and ‘reserved’, suggesting he might have been misunderstood rather than a misbehaver.

Save for a trial with Manchester City, Olise spent around six months without an academy to call home until Reading handed him the opportunity. Mark Bowen arrived at Reading in March 2019 as technical director before going on to take charge of the first-team. Previously speaking to Daily Mail Sport, Bowen described an ‘arrogance about him, and I mean that in a nice way’.

Olise was not afraid of anyone. Per Bowen, he would invite Reading’s senior players to come at him when he had the ball, confident they had no chance of taking it from him. They occasionally took up that invitation, which left Olise on the deck, but it helped him develop a robust streak.

Olise scored 22 and assisted 31 goals in all competitions for Bayern Munich in 2025-26

Olise is still firm friends with his former Crystal Palace team-mate and chess opponent Eberechi Eze (right)

He is described as 'reserved' and 'very polite', but also was accused of attitude problems in his youth

However, some of those same issues mentioned by Chelsea sources were also evident at Reading. Olise was frustrated while still stuck with the Under 23s. Time-keeping was an issue; he was often the last one to waltz in for a team meeting. If a training session was defensive-focused, Olise could not comprehend what benefit that would be to him, and would ask that very question.

However, we know what happened from there. Olise grew up and set his sights on performing in the Premier League and beyond. After impressing at Reading, Crystal Palace triggered his £8million release clause, and Daily Mail Sport recalls visiting their training ground one day while Patrick Vieira was the manager in January 2023.

We were in Vieira’s office, and he told us how he had spoken with Olise because he did not celebrate after scoring his stoppage-time free-kick equaliser in their 1-1 draw with Manchester United. ‘You might look at this and think it's arrogance,’ Vieira told us. ‘But I talked to him and it was because he wasn't happy about his game. He was being hard on himself because he did not think he had played well enough.’

As we were exiting Palace’s training ground via a trip to the canteen, we bumped into Olise, who had been playing chess with Eberechi Eze. They were just leaving and, in a sign of their politeness, each of them shook the hands of every kitchen staff member before heading home.

It was at the end of that 2023-24 season that Bayern signed Olise for £52m with Chelsea reportedly withdrawing from the race due to salary demands. Those at Stamford Bridge might think he would have been worth the money now. He might have been theirs, and could have been England’s, too. Instead, Bayern and France are grateful they have him – a player who is still only 24, a potential future Ballon d’Or winner and, maybe soon, a world champion.

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