Comparing Michael Olise in 2025-26 to Cristiano Ronaldo pre-Real Madrid move | OneFootball

Michael Olise has been identified as Florentino Perez’s mystery €150m man, but do the Real Madrid president’s claims of him being a Galactico on the level of Cristiano Ronaldo hold up?

As the Real Madrid presidential election battle comes to a climax, both Perez and rival candidate Enrique Riquelme have been serving up their biggest and boldest claims to try and win over voters.

For Perez, it’s the promise of the biggest signing in the club’s history that has drawn the most attention.

“I’m going to make an offer to a major Champions League club for a great player,” he said on Spanish TV. “It would be the largest transfer fee Real Madrid has ever paid in its history.”

Suggesting the offer would be at least €150m, Perez promised it was an attacking player, not from the Premier League but on a Galactico level similar to when they signed Ronaldo from Manchester United in 2009.

Detectives, otherwise known as transfer reporters, have since revealed that Perez’s mystery target – despite his own denials – is Bayern Munich winger Olise.

The Frenchman is fresh from the best season of his career, in which he’s earned himself an outside (but fading) shout of the Ballon d’Or. But has he actually been on the level Ronaldo was in his last season with Manchester United before joining Madrid?

We’ve taken a look at their stats from the corresponding seasons to decide…

Michael Olise in 2025-26

Assists: 31

Goal contributions: 53

Minutes per goal: 182.5

Minutes per G/A: 75.8

Non-penalty goals: 22

Trophies: 3 (Bundesliga, German Cup, German Super Cup)

Cristiano Ronaldo in 2008-09

Appearances: 53

Goals: 26

Assists: 12

Goal contributions: 38

Minutes per goal: 166.1

Minutes per G/A: 113.7

Non-penalty goals: 21

Trophies: 4 (Premier League, League Cup, Community Shield, Club World Cup)

2025-26 Olise vs 2008-09 Ronaldo

Thanks largely to his incredible assists record, Olise has actually outranked Ronaldo’s final pre-Real Madrid season for goal contributions.

Even taking away Ronaldo’s penalties, Olise has a better scoring record left over.

However, it’s worth remembering that the season before, Ronaldo had scored 42 goals, contributing as much towards Madrid’s desire to sign him as what he did the following season. In contrast, Olise scored 20 last season.

There’s also the caveat of the Premier League presenting a greater number of tricky games than the Bundesliga, but if we were to compare the competition they both played in – the Champions League – in those seasons, Olise actually scored more (five, to Ronaldo’s four, despite Bayern being knocked out in the semi-finals and United being runners-up in 2009).

To say the standards Ronaldo is usually held to from the prime years of his career, Olise certainly didn’t do a bad job of keeping pace this season.