Football has always been fascinated by duos. Big and small strike partnerships, steel and silk double pivots, cat and dog centre-back pairings. In a team sport that often favours the individual, the game’s treacherous twins are a nice sweet spot. Almost like a collaborative ego.

We can all appreciate a goal where every player on the team touches the ball or when one player scores in his Ankara Messi bag. But when two separate and great minds combine as one to impact a game in a way very few can replicate or stop, it’s like magic.

Two players who share a telepathic connection on the pitch that makes you wonder what they’re like together off it. A kind of synergy that can only come from mutual admiration. “I’m just tryna be like you!” in its purest form.

Think about how Olivier Giroud and Jack Wilshere combined with that pinball-esque passing move against Norwich in 2013. Or the amount of times Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson played one-twos with each other on opposite sides of the pitch to progress the ball. There is something deeply enchanting about how two players can make the pitch their own. Two artists harmonising in real time. 

Whether it’s Fran Kirby and Sam Kerr or Paolo Maldini and Alessandro Nesta, the best double acts in football come in many different forms. The only thing that binds them all together is the joy we feel watching them bring our own partnerships to life.

But when it comes to double acts in football today, you’d struggle to find one more magical than Crystal Palace’s Michael Olise and Eberechi Eze.

That’s why many of us are so enamoured by their partnership. The social clips of them making jokes together and how they talk about one another in interviews serve as a reminder that football is at its best when you’re playing with your mates. It’s the feeling you got when your PE teacher told you to get into pairs during a lesson and you instantly shared a look with your partner in crime. 

When we see those friendships bloom at the top level, it’s inspirational. It speaks to a level we all aspire to be at when playing with our own friends. 

Friendships can manifest themselves anywhere. But when it happens on the pitch, we’re drawn to them like moths to a flame. It’s an instinctual bond. To receive the ball at the perfect time, with the perfect weight without calling for it. Becoming extensions of one another and creating unexplainable moments of magic. If you were to ask Wilshere and Giroud how they created that goal against Norwich, they’d just shrug and laugh.

When you watch the best double acts in full flow, it’s like getting a lesson in real-time of how much time and effort goes into creating that level of chemistry. The hours it took to nurture that ease of playing with someone who not only accentuates your strengths but will cover for your weaknesses too.

Only time will tell how long Eze and Olise will have together at Palace. If they keep balling out like this, all we’ll have left are ‘streets won’t forget’ compilations.

So watch whatever remains, take in their joint brilliance and remind yourself why football is supposed to be played with friends.

The last 12 times they touched the pitch together in the league, at least one of them bagged a goal or an assist (13 G+A for Olise and 10 G+A assists for Eze). Both with vital contributions against the likes of Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester City. But this is bigger than the numbers. 

Not only are they the two best attacking players on their team, but at times it feels like anything skillful can only come from them. Individually, they’re dangerous enough. But together, they’re among the greatest entertainers the Premier League currently has to offer. When they’re both on song, they’re unstoppable. 

In the modern era of football, games are much more structured and defences are far more organised. It’s rare to see two attacking players have such a consistently massive impact on a game for their team - especially with such freedom. But Eze and Olise have taken to the Premier League like the two best ballers in the school playing Wembley doubles.

In essence, Eze and Olise have taken that same carefree exuberance many of us had playing on patches of grass with jumpers for goalposts and refined it to a standard reserved only for art. When you combine the heritage south London has in moulding some of the most tekked out ballers and the fact that Eze and Olise are following in the footsteps of Wilfried Zaha and Yannick Bolasie, it’s clear this means more than the havoc they wreak on the pitch.