{"id":788840,"date":"2026-07-09T08:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T08:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/788840\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T08:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T08:54:10","slug":"best-player-england-has-developed-olises-rise-from-hayes-to-the-world-cup-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/788840\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Best player England has developed\u2019: Olise\u2019s rise from Hayes to the World Cup | France"},"content":{"rendered":"

If Michael Olise wins the World Cup<\/a>, there will be a corner of a Hayes housing estate that is for ever France. It is Olise\u2019s corner, a scrap of parkland grass among the west London suburban homes where a seven-year-old practised his football with his brother, Richard. \u201cFootball in these conditions, it\u2019s just freedom,\u201d Olise told L\u2019\u00c9quipe last month. \u201cIt\u2019s not really learning in the strict sense. It was simply the pleasure of playing football. I just loved it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sean Conlon, one of Olise\u2019s early coaches with Old Isleworthians in west London, recalls: \u201cI would go over to his house and he would be practising outside with Richard. That little estate probably really aided him; there weren\u2019t a lot of cars but it had quite a lot of concrete open space and then a small green. He\u2019d just be practising out here all the time, obsessed with football.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fast forward 10 years and Olise was at Reading<\/a>, having been rejected by Chelsea\u2019s and Manchester City\u2019s academies. Brendan Flanagan was the academy scout who recruited him for the Championship side and recalls a game he watched.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were playing Sparta Prague in the European Under-21 Cup,\u201d Flanagan says. \u201cI got there at half\u2011time. Michael was about 17 and on the bench. I sat in front of [the former Crystal Palace and West\u00a0Ham player] Hayden Mullins, who used to work for us and who I got on well with. Michael came on with 17 minutes to go. Within five minutes Hayden leaned over to me and said: \u2018Who the fuck is that?!\u2019 I\u00a0just started laughing. And Hayden said: \u2018Come on then, tell me, where did you find this one?\u2019 So I explained the story\u00a0\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Which takes us back to Conlon and that housing estate in Hayes. Because it isn\u2019t just a mystery tale of how Chelsea and City let Olise, one of the outstanding stars of the World Cup<\/a> and a Ballon d\u2019Or contender, slip through their clutches. It is also the story of how and why he never represented England despite being born there and coming up through the English\u00a0system.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I first saw him play for Hayes when he was six what stood out was his physical movement,\u201d Conlon says. \u201cHe glides around the pitch: very graceful, perfect coordination, everything effortless. The way he moves today was how he moved when he was six. That\u2019s something he\u2019s been born with. People say he\u2019s the best player England has ever developed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conlon had coached at Chelsea and as soon as Olise was old enough, at nine, he was swept up into the club\u2019s academy. His talent was still evident because City took him on \u2013 he was in Cole Palmer\u2019s year group and a year behind Phil Foden \u2013 yet they also released him, at 16. At which point he returned to Conlon, who runs an academy called We Make Footballers. Olise\u00a0was looking desperately for a pro club when a contact of Flanagan recommended him.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a lot of scepticism from various members of staff at Reading that he would be a bad egg,\u201d Flanagan says. \u201c[They said]: \u2018He\u2019s been released by Chelsea, by Man\u00a0City. We shouldn\u2019t be bringing him in. He\u2019ll be a problem.\u2019 I said: \u2018Look, let\u2019s just get the kid in and make our decision.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Conlon concurs. \u201cAll the other scouts were: \u2018He\u2019s just come out of\u00a0Manchester City, he\u2019s just come out of Chelsea, why have they not kept him on?\u2019 They were half and half. They could see him and say: \u2018Why are we not taking this talent?\u2019\u00a0But Reading were the ones\u00a0that committed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Olise had to travel to Reading from London for training but the club would arrange for a shuttle bus to pick up the London trainees from the station to drive them to the training ground. \u201cOn his first day I got a call from him at the station and he was asking: \u2018Where do I need to pick the bus up please?\u2019\u201d Flanagan says. \u201cI directed him to the shuttle bus but everything was \u2018please\u2019 and \u2018thank you\u2019 and I thought to myself: \u2018This ain\u2019t a bad kid. He\u2019s just a kid who\u2019s a bit misunderstood, different.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we never had a problem with him. He wasn\u2019t ever a bad lad. He was always an intelligent, quiet lad who just expressed himself a bit differently. What wasn\u2019t right for them [City and Chelsea] … well, we\u2019re just little old Reading down the M4. We can work with these kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael Olise made his name at Reading after being released by Chelsea and Manchester City. Photograph: Tess Derry\/PA<\/p>\n

Olise progressed quickly to Reading\u2019s under-21s, where Flanagan and Mullins witnessed him play against Sparta Prague. \u201cHe was absolutely unbelievable that day,\u201d Flanagan says. \u201cHayden and I shook hands at the end and said: \u2018This kid will play for the first team by the end of the season.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

A few weeks later Olise was asked to make up numbers in first\u2011team training by the then manager, Jos\u00e9 Gomes. \u201cThat Saturday he was on the bench and he made his debut soon after. The manager obviously saw him and thought: \u2018Oh my God! This kid is unbelievable.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a>Free newsletter | Every weekday<\/p>\n

Sign up to Football Daily<\/p>\n

Kick off your evenings with the Guardian’s take on the world of football<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

As for England, they never came calling. Olise himself is respectful of all the countries where he has roots. His mum, Mina, is French Algerian and his dad, Vincent, is British Nigerian. \u201cI actually come from four countries,\u201d he told the Bayern Munich website last season. \u201cFrance, Algeria, Nigeria and Great Britain. I consider myself very lucky to possess these four parts, which all enrich me. I\u2019ve developed attachments in all my countries. When I was growing up in London, we regularly visited Algeria, Nigeria\u00a0and France<\/a>. My dad always\u00a0spoke English with me at home, my mum, French.\u201d<\/p>\n

He wasn\u2019t on England\u2019s radar as a teenager. \u201cWe weren\u2019t as attractive a club,\u201d Flanagan says. \u201cIt\u2019s slightly changed now but back then, for England, generally, you had to come from Chelsea, Manchester City, Manchester United and Arsenal. France reached out to us and we spoke to Michael. I think they were given information that there was a French connection. They were the first one who selected him [for the under-18s] and, even though England came in for him for the under-20s, he was happy where he was.\u201d<\/p>\n

To be fair, England were in the midst of a golden generation of talents fuelled by the reform of club academies, which began in 2012 and now provides the bedrock of the England team. In his immediate age group were Palmer, Bukayo Saka, Morgan Rogers, Anthony Gordon and Noni\u00a0Madueke, with Jude Bellingham and Germany\u2019s Jamal Musiala, then at Chelsea and playing for England, the year below. Premier League academies have educated the world; it must be frustrating for the Football\u00a0Association that the best creative player at the World Cup<\/a> was born in England and is playing for France. Olise has provided more\u00a0assists \u2013 five \u2013 than anyone else at the tournament.<\/p>\n

Michael Olise has took his game to another level since joining Bayern Munich from Crystal Palace. Photograph: Angelika Warmuth\/Reuters<\/p>\n

\u201cCould I see he would reach the levels that he\u2019s reached?\u201d asks Flanagan. \u201cI don\u2019t think anyone could. Some kids do look like they might be a Ballon d\u2019Or contender at 16 and then kind of level out. But Michael was on a trajectory that went up and up and up and he still hasn\u2019t levelled off. He just seems to be getting better and better. He\u2019s always had a picture in his head, saw things quicker than anyone else and had the ability to find a way to make the pass. But he\u2019s just gone to another level.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s crazy,\u201d Conlon says. \u201cWith the under-eights, we say to the kids: \u2018One day you\u2019re going to win the World Cup. One day you\u2019re going to win the Champions League. This is why you have to have these standards.\u2019 You preach it and now we\u2019ve actually had someone go and do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

All of which leaves a small dilemma for Olise\u2019s childhood mentors. What to do if England meet France in the World Cup final? \u201cI\u2019m going to be sat on the fence,\u201d Flanagan says. \u201cObviously I want Michael to do well. But obviously I want England to win as well. So I probably won\u2019t watch the game and stay out of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If Michael Olise wins the World Cup, there will be a corner of a Hayes housing estate that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":788841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-788840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=788840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/788841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=788840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=788840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}