It’s easier said than done to not change when superstardom hits. If anyone was ever going to pull it off with aplomb – both in terms of a rapid rise and not batting an eyelid – it was Michael Olise. After his almost one-man demolition of Werder Bremen on Saturday afternoon, which most players would have taken days to shut up about, Bayern Munich’s new favourite took around half an hour to emerge from the dressing room. Encouraged by Jamal Musiala to spare a few words for the club’s in-house television channel, Olise was almost frogmarched in front of the camera by his younger teammate, who then did much of the talking for him to describe the recent arrival’s brilliance.
The early traces of Bundesliga Olise, then, are just like Premier League Olise, on the surface at least. The difference is the relentless excellence is now at the heart of an all-star cast, and the first series has begun with a bang. We will have to see whether Vincent Kompany is able to steer Bayern to the trophies that eluded them last season, and perhaps Harry Kane’s comment during the week after a big Champions League win that his team will need to defend more thoroughly against better opposition is one to hold on to. For the moment, that is not something to worry about. Right now, Bayern are to be enjoyed.
After scoring 20 goals in a week (hitting six against Holstein Kiel last weekend, planting nine on Dinamo Zagreb in midweek leading to the sacking of their coach Sergej Jakirovic, and now this 5-0 win) they deserved a drink or two at Sunday’s traditional Oktoberfest visit, to paraphrase Süddeutsche Zeitung. Olise arrived looking ice cool, sporting angular mirrored shades above the standard Bavarian Janker jacket. The regional newspaper also noted that Kompany had removed any managed limits on beer consumption, trusting his players, though it feels as if his group are a long way from inelegance at the moment – and their new star is leading the way, expertly treading the line between classic and looking forward.
Olise’s goal to open the scoring in Bremen was neat enough, prodded in from Harry Kane’s pass, but was barely a warm-up for the whirlwind to come. It is hard to pick a highlight among the dribble and pass that laid Musiala’s goal on, the cushioned set-up for Kane at the end of a dazzling second-half move or his own shot into the top corner after a one-two with Serge Gnabry. Even Kompany found it hard to put such a high level of performance into words. “He has a very special talent,” said the coach. “He couldn’t have started much better for Bayern. He has to keep going like this, but I don’t have the feeling that he is a boy who feels a lot of pressure. He enjoys football.”
The on-pitch demands were always likely to be the easy bit for Olise, a quiet man off the field. Yet a changing dimension in recent months has meant the 22-year-old has had to deal with a flurry of things outside his typical comfort zone. His performance for France’s Olympic team, before and during the tournament, made clear that he would not be able to continue ploughing a tranquil furrow for long. Last month’s first senior call-up for Les Bleus brought a lot of media and public attention with it, from an audience beguiled by his ability and fascinated as to why a reserved young man from Hammersmith had chosen to represent France.
Olise handled it brilliantly, carefully explaining (in a second language) how childhood holidays in France with his Franco-Algerian mother and watching Thierry Henry on television had fed his dream. He is already popular and liked by the public, who can see him fighting through his shyness to connect, as well as the possibilities he offers in adding imagination to a France midfield that has sometimes lacked genuine craft. Recent months have made it exactly clear how focused and ambitious Olise is behind his reserve. His new clubmate Mathys Tel was refused permission to go the Olympics with France; Olise insisted he would be allowed to take part while completing his transfer to the Allianz Arena.
Perhaps on the turf, surrounded by a far better supporting cast – and he is good enough that, eventually, defining the rest of Bayern’s players as that may not seem such a stretch – there is the best possible respite from all the rest of it which is “part of the business,” as Musiala reminded him on the way to the cameras at the Weserstadion. The real business remains hitting those high targets, in Olise’s mind. “From the outside you don’t see the real Michael,” suggested Kane. “[He’s] a fantastic player and a really good guy. He wants to get his numbers up – he wants goals, and he wants assists.” With it looking increasingly like Olise can bend events to his will on the field, the rest of the world will have to get used to him playing the game on his terms off it, too.
Augsburg 2-3 Mainz, Bayer Leverkusen 4-3 Wolfsburg, Bochum 2-2 Holstein Kiel, Eintracht Frankfurt 2-0 Borussia Mönchengladbach, Heidenheim 0-3 Freiburg, Schalke 3-5 Darmstadt, St Pauli 0-0 RB Leipzig, Stuttgart 5-1 Borussia Dortmund, Union Berlin 2-1 Hoffenheim, Werder Bremen 0-5 Bayern Munich
Talking points
• Let’s get it out of the way; Bayer Leverkusen are still Bayer Leverkusen. A goal down in Sunday’s mid-afternoon game with Wolfsburg in double-quick time (with debutant Nordi Mukiele scoring an own goal), they led, trailed again by half-time and then, of course, took the points through a brilliant Victor Boniface finish in the third minute of stoppage time. Yet if the spectacle grabbed the public and if Florian Wirtz continued his unbelievable form, an angry Granit Xhaka was not interested in talking about either. “We need to be honest with each other,” he raged. “This isn’t good enough. A top team can’t concede three goals in 45 minutes.” Xhaka went on to challenge his teammates by suggesting their level of hunger, rather than the system, is responsible for their current defensive gremlins.
• Elsewhere it is beyond question that apart from Xabi Alonso, Sebastian Hoeness is the best coach in the Bundesliga. On a Sunday where the later game was built around the returns of Waldemar Anton (who was booed relentlessly) and Serhou Guirassy to Stuttgart, their new team Borussia Dortmund were swept aside. Hoeness already helped to rocket Stuttgart from the relegation places to runners up after losing some key players. Now they’re doing it all over again, and on the back of a Deniz Undav brace and a virtuoso display from Enzo Millot (who played alongside Olise for France’s Olympic team), their 5-1 flattered BVB, if anything – and all after Stuttgart gave everything in an unlucky defeat at Real Madrid in midweek. “I never want to see us show that face again,” simmered visiting coach Nuri Sahin who – it should be clear now – has his work cut out in rewiring Dortmund’s sporting culture.
• Points at last for the promoted teams, with Holstein Kiel snatching a late draw at Bochum thanks to substitute Shuto Machino’s late equaliser, while St Pauli’s titanic performance against RB Leipzig could have easily got them a win rather than just a goalless draw (“We brought more courage into the team,” said coach Alexander Blessin). Both are better off than Schalke, who threw away a three-goal lead to lose 5-3 at home to Darmstadt and sit third from bottom in Bundesliga 2 after firing coach Karel Geraerts and sporting director Marc Wilmots (Benedikt Höwedes has already rejected the latter post).
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bayern Munich | 4 | 13 | 12 |
| 2 | Bayer Leverkusen | 4 | 4 | 9 |
| 3 | Freiburg | 4 | 4 | 9 |
| 4 | Eintracht Frankfurt | 4 | 3 | 9 |
| 5 | RB Leipzig | 4 | 2 | 8 |
| 6 | Union Berlin | 4 | 2 | 8 |
| 7 | Stuttgart | 4 | 4 | 7 |
| 8 | Borussia Dortmund | 4 | 0 | 7 |
| 9 | Heidenheim | 4 | 1 | 6 |
| 10 | Mainz | 4 | 0 | 5 |
| 11 | Werder Bremen | 4 | -4 | 5 |
| 12 | Augsburg | 4 | -3 | 4 |
| 13 | Wolfsburg | 4 | -1 | 3 |
| 14 | Borussia M'gladbach | 4 | -3 | 3 |
| 15 | Hoffenheim | 4 | -5 | 3 |
| 16 | VfL Bochum | 4 | -4 | 1 |
| 17 | St Pauli | 4 | -5 | 1 |
| 18 | Holstein Kiel | 4 | -8 | 1 |
