The 21-year-old has a Pandora's box of tricks he uses to torment defences - something Liverpool fans will enjoy watching in the Premier League next season
The first time Simon Rolfes went to watch Florian Wirtz, he was blown away.
Wirtz was only 13 years old, playing for Cologne’s youth teams, but word had spread about a midfielder displaying extraordinary talent at such a young age. The way he lived in the half-spaces – those elusive gaps between the defence and midfield – the way he lay traps for defenders, baiting them towards him before sending team-mates through on goal with devastating passes.
Recently-retired Rolfes, working in Bayer Leverkusen’s academy, had played over 250 games for the Bundesliga side in defensive midfield, and knew what Wirtz was doing wasn’t normal. It was rare to see professionals with such awareness, let alone a teenage boy.
Rolfes, now Leverkusen’s sporting director, took notes. Over the years, he befriended Wirtz’s parents, Hans-Joachim and Karin, who are now the player’s agent and financial manager.
He checked on Wirtz frequently, and another thing that stood out was how the boy maintained that standard and ability at 14, 15 then 16. The opponents grew bigger and stronger, the games more intense, but still that talent remained.
Rolfes convinced Wirtz’s parents that his club were right for the next phases of his development and remained true to his word when Leverkusen sold Kai Havertz to Chelsea for £71m in September 2020.
Many feared Leverkusen would be unable to replace him. Rolfes thought otherwise: rather than spend big, he saw an opportunity to promote this 17-year-old wonderkid who they had signed for the academy the year before.
It was one of the best decisions the club made. Wirtz’s development into one of the world’s most sought-after players, one Liverpool are set to sign for a British record fee of £116.5m, correlated with Leverkusen’s best period in a decade, culminating in the unbeaten Bundesliga title season.
Not even a major knee injury, tearing the ACL in his left knee in 2002, curtailed his progress.
Cast an eye over his data and statistics from the last few years and you see that the 22-year-old is posting Kevin De Bruyne numbers that attracted the Premier League’s two most successful clubs of the past decade.
When Manchester City started to identify a De Bruyne replacement, the parallels were striking and Wirtz quickly emerged as their No 1 target.
The attacking midfielder has made over 30 appearances for Germany (Photo: Getty)
Both players are strong as an advanced attacking midfielder, but adept at dropping deeper and playing with defensive positional discipline and smart pressing.
Wirtz is confident making driving runs with the ball – he successfully beat players 82 times in 165 attempts last season, more than any other Bundesliga player, and he dribbled the ball more than five metres 549 times, bettered only by three players, according to statistics recorded by The Analyst.
With Trent Alexander-Arnold packing his bags for Real Madrid, City and Liverpool knew they were losing quarterback passers with vision and technique few possess.
Wirtz, still only 22, is one of them.
Few players bettered his numbers for receiving the ball in attacking areas and making attacking passes last season, and he created an average of 2.1 chances per game. Only one player in the Premier League surpassed that: Mohamed Salah (2.3).
The season before last, Wirtz also topped tables for smart passes – which data analysis platform Wyscout describes as a “creative and penetrative pass that attempts to break the opposition’s defensive lines to gain a significant advantage in attack” – and key passes.
Around the area, Wirtz has a veritable Pandora’s box of tricks to torment defences.
He frequently uses his eyes and body shape to send opponents the wrong way, can pull off no-look passes, makes lateral runs that disrupt the conventional wisdom of defending so nobody is sure who is supposed to mark him.
His vision is so sharp and passing so accurate he will deliver a pass to a team-mate’s preferred foot.
You can see why Xabi Alonso, the manager for three of Wirtz’s five seasons at Leverkusen, described him as a “difference-maker”.
Liverpool were particularly intrigued by his numbers that aligned with Alexander-Arnold’s, the pair closely matching for touches and passes per game last season.
His goal and assist numbers are consistently high – in that rare way that De Bruyne’s are for an attacking midfielder. And he shares similar precision: Wirtz hit the target with half of his 78 attempts last season, a feat achieved by only three players.
When it became clear Leverkusen were refusing to budge on an asking price in excess of £100m, and the addition of Liverpool and Bayern Munich to the auction, City, shrewd recruiters who stick to strict budgets, pulled out of the running, opting instead for Lyon’s Rayan Cherki for the more modest fee of £30.5m.
But Arne Slot, Liverpool’s title-winning manager, pushed for the deal in the belief – shared by the club – that Wirtz is the sort of player who can stop rivals catching up with the Premier League champions next season.
Where he will play for Slot will be intriguing.
Wirtz can play off the left wing – he played there for Germany at Euro 2024. But his optimal position is as a No 10; for Leverkusen usually inside left behind the striker. He operated particularly well with Granit Xhaka as a defensive base.
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At Liverpool, his preferred role is currently occupied by Dominik Szoboszlai. The Hungarian was one of Liverpool’s top performers last season, but even Slot admitted that despite the player’s stamina and intensity, he did not contribute enough goals and assists for his position.
It will most likely see Szoboszlai moved further back to make way, utilising Wirtz’s deadly attributes to feed a front three.
A key element of Wirtz’s game that will synthesise with Slot is his running. Slot demands his players run hard – and Wirtz averaged 12.3km per game in Leverkusen’s unbeaten Bundesliga season, running further than any team-mate. His burst of pace is another asset: he has been clocked at 21.4mph, which if sustained will finish a 100m race in around 11 seconds.
Combine his pressing skills – in the last two seasons he has won the ball in the opponent’s final third more than any other players in Germany – acceleration and passing, he is the ideal fit for Slot’s high-press-counter tactic that was so fruitful last season.
It’s clear to see why Liverpool have gone all in to sign him.