Arsenal, beware – Khvicha Kvaratskhelia looks unstoppable! Winners and losers as flying Georgian carries PSG to another Champions League final – and deals a blow to Harry Kane and Bayern Munich stars’ Ballon d’Or dreams
Michael Olise is also a tremendously talented winger. The Bayern Munich ace showed that at Parc des Princes, where he did something truly astounding by making Nuno Mendes look like an average full-back. Olise glided past the Portuguese time and time again in Paris – and when he did so again just eight minutes into the return clash in Munich, Mendes desperately chopped him down, resulting in an inevitable yellow card.
However, while the defender was subsequently lucky to avoid a second booking for a clear handball (the referee had spotted an earlier handball by Konrad Laimer that the rest of us had missed!), Mendes actually managed to recover from his shaky start and go on to win his hugely influential head-to-head with Olise.
The France international had more touches of the ball than any other player on the pitch (92) but didn’t do anywhere near enough with it. Olise did create a couple of chances, and had four efforts on goal, but he never really looked like scoring, while he also only managed to complete three of his 10 dribbles and lost 13 of his 21 duels (the majority of which were against Mendes). Worst of all, he gave the ball away a game-high 29 times.
Granted, players like Olise are risk-takers, so they’re always going to make mistakes, but there’s no disguising the fact that this was a desperately disappointing night for a potential match-winner who was, rather tellingly, left with his head in his hands at full-time. The biggest game of his career so far had surprisingly got away from him.
