There’s a difference between a tidy player and one who can thrive at the top when things get ugly. The point here is simple: you can coach touch, positioning and movement, but you can’t coach the bit that makes a player throw his body in on a 50/50 and stay there. That’s Olsen’s trouble, as plain as day to anyone who watches regularly.

The courage gap

To be blunt, he looks frightened at times. Not disinterested — that’s an easy criticism to lob — but actually fearful. You see it in the way he clings to the touchline, stays tight to his defender and rarely ventures into those nastier pockets where the game is won or lost. There’s a tentative quality about him, like he’s waiting permission to get stuck in. When the crowd roars and the heat goes up, he seems to shrink back rather than rise to the challenge.

Why coaching won’t fix everything

I’ve coached youngsters for years and I’ve seen this exact pattern. You can give a kid all the drills in the world; you can teach bravery in practice until you’re blue in the face, but the actual decision to step into contact under pressure is something else. Some players have it naturally. Others don’t. A few will flatter — they have talent, decent positional sense, the odd good cross — and that’s enough to get them noticed for a while. But without that core physical courage, their progress stalls.

A familiar, sad outcome

It’s not about malice or laziness. It’s about temperament. And temperament is sticky. The sad truth is that many decent youngsters fade because they lack that edge. Olsen looks like one of them. He’s got qualities, but if he can’t summon that willingness to be in the thick of it, then you can see why it fizzles. I’d like to be proven wrong, but as a long-time watcher and coach the pattern is familiar and the outcome sadly predictable.

Written by Thorntonsuite: 5 June 2026

Tags: squad