The story of Crystal Palace and Wilfried Zaha is a romantic tale – albeit surely one of unfulfilled potential as far as the Ivorian is concerned.
The Galatasaray No.14 recently spoke about why he felt the need to leave Selhurst Park in 2023 to become his own man elsewhere – and not just be remembered as Mr Crystal Palace.
While the Ivory Coast international won the Super Lig title in his first season in Turkey and also got his first taste of UEFA Champions League football, it still feels like the 31-year-old should have experienced these highs years ago, when you consider Arsenal bid £40m to sign him in 2019.
Now – after a recent development at Crystal Palace – Wilfried Zaha may be feeling quite upset, or rather, envious.
Wilfried Zaha may envy Michael Olise after he swapped Crystal Palace for Bayern Munich
On Sunday, it was announced that Michael Olise had sealed his £50.8m move to Bayern Munich.
The France U21 international was able to depart SE25 so easily due to a release clause written into his contract – the same method in which Dougie Freedman managed to sign him from Reading for just £8m.
Clearly, Olise mapped his career out early on, and had no intention of being held hostage – so to speak – in an era where football clubs often charge well over the odds for their best players.
Contrastingly, Zaha and his representatives did not look to plot out his future through the use of a release clause, which enabled Steve Parish to laugh off Arsenal’s £40m bid in 2019, and actually adopt a stance of £80m or nothing that summer, according to a story from the Daily Mail.
Even a transfer request failed to result in an exit from Selhurst Park.
Of course, the man from Abidjan then spent the next four years of his career at Crystal Palace after being priced out of a move, proving to be a talismanic figure in securing Premier League survival, but ultimately not achieving anything close to what his talent deserved, as his prime years were effectively under Roy Hodgson.
What if
Zaha almost certainly holds no bitterness towards Olise – he even sent him a heartfelt message on Instagram after hearing of his move to Germany.
Having said that, there is surely a feeling of “what if” inside the Crystal Palace academy graduate’s head, as the Bayern Munich new boy shows him how not to get stuck at a club against your will.