For Michael Olise, the World Cup semifinal against Spain didn’t just end in a disappointing loss. After the final whistle, the Bayern star apparently also had to put up with taunting comments from the Spanish national team players.
Michael Olise had one of his weakest performances of the World Cup during France’s 0–2 loss to Spain. The FC Bayern forward barely got into the game throughout the match and was substituted after 72 minutes.
But that wasn’t the end of the 24-year-old’s unfortunate evening.
Fabián Ruiz taunts Olise
As the French TV channel RMC Sport reported, an incident occurred after the final whistle between Spanish national team players Fabián Ruiz and Marc Cucurella.
According to the report, Ruiz said to his teammate, looking at Olise: “You took him out of the game. Take him out of your pocket.”
The remark alludes to a phrase commonly used in soccer to describe a defender who has completely shut down his opponent for the entire match.
Cucurella, playing on the left side of Spain’s defense, repeatedly engaged Olise in direct duels and rarely gave the Bayern Munich player any room to operate.
Experts see an unusually weak performance
The experts were also surprised by Olise’s performance. Per Mertesacker explained on ZDF: “You could see it—Olise wasn’t in the game.”
MagentaTV expert Mats Hummels echoed this sentiment: “You get the feeling that the individual performances today just weren’t at their best. Especially Olise and Dembélé, who didn’t accomplish much. I’ve rarely seen Olise so erratic—he lost possession so many times.”
The French newspaper L’Équipe also rated the Bayern star’s performance at just two out of a possible ten points and criticized in particular his many inaccuracies in passing and dribbling.
Despite the weak semifinal, Olise’s World Cup will be remembered positively overall. With his strong performances in previous matches, the Frenchman was one of the tournament’s most standout players—but against Spain, for once, he couldn’t find a way past the European champions’ compact defense.