Michael Olise is fit for Bayern Munich’s Tuesday Champions League clash with Atletico Madrid, and he has made the travelling squad after the right-knee scare that briefly halted his momentum. The winger limped out of Saturday’s 2-2 draw with Borussia Dortmund, but he was back in group training on Monday morning and available again in time for the trip to the Wanda Metropolitano.
That is the kind of update Vincent Kompany needed on the eve of a major European night. Bayern also welcomed back Manuel Neuer, who had missed the last three matches, giving the squad a timely lift as they head into Atletico Madrid in the Champions League with some of the pressure off the injury list.
The reason the news matters is simple: Bayern are still short-handed even after getting Olise and Neuer back. They remain without Luis Diaz, Jamal Musiala, Ismael Sibari and Serge Gnabry, so the return of one winger does not erase the strain on selection. Kompany and his staff can at least count on Olise’s recovery, but the balance of the squad is still thinner than they would like for a match of this size.
There is one detail that still matters more than the rest: being in the squad does not tell the whole story. It confirms Olise is available, but it does not answer how much Bayern intend to use him at the Wanda Metropolitano, or whether he is ready to start after the knee problem that surfaced against Borussia Dortmund. For Bayern, the immediate comfort is that one of their key attackers is back in the picture just as the Champions League demands its sharpest options.
