Claude Makelele on Real Madrid's Priority Signing: Michael Olise

Claude Makelele has seen enough of the game’s greats to choose his words carefully. So when he singles out Michael Olise as the one player Real Madrid should spend big on, it lands with weight.

The former Chelsea and Real Madrid midfielder revealed he has already taken that message straight to the top at the Bernabeu, telling president Florentino Perez that Olise should be the club’s priority if there is budget for just one signing.

For Makelele, the attraction is clear: Olise changes matches. Not just with numbers, but with the kind of flair that drags people to their feet.

He highlighted the winger’s blend of creativity and end product, describing how his presence instantly alters the rhythm of a game – and how his absence is just as obvious. When Olise is missing, Makelele argued, the spectacle loses something. The spark goes with him.

That is why he reached for the highest reference point in the modern game. At his best, Makelele said, Olise carries the same sense of danger Lionel Messi once did: that feeling that, in any second, something outrageous might happen. One touch, one feint, one pass nobody else even thought existed.

Opponents feel it. So do his team-mates. Makelele pointed to players such as Ousmane Dembele, Kylian Mbappe and Bradley Barcola as examples of forwards who understand exactly what Olise can do with the ball at his feet – how he can slide a pass into spaces others never spot. That, in Makelele’s eyes, is the essence of modern attacking football: imagination, risk, and execution at full speed, the kind that makes supporters dream and leaves commentators grasping for superlatives.

Olise, he insisted, is “exceptional”.

Yet even as he talked up the Frenchman’s talent, Makelele refused to be drawn into a straight comparison with Jude Bellingham. The temptation is obvious: two young stars, both linked with defining Real Madrid’s next era. Makelele shut that door.

For him, the greats stand alone. Bellingham and Olise, he said, should be allowed to speak with their performances, not measured against each other like products on a shelf. He drew a line back through football history to make his point: you do not compare Pele to those who followed, and the arguments over Diego Maradona never truly end. Zinedine Zidane, he reminded, left an imprint on the sport that does not fade, no matter who comes next.

Makelele’s stance is simple and unwavering: legends are not copy-pasted across generations, and the new wave should not be forced into old templates. Let Bellingham carve his path. Let Olise carve his. If Real Madrid follow his advice, the next chapter of that story might just be written in white.