Bayern Munich’s honorary and outspoken president Uli Hoeneß tore into Liverpool, deriding the club’s summer transfer business and presenting an image of faux pity for Florian Wirtz, who is suffering as a consequence of the apparent selfishness riddled throughout the squad.
Hoeneß is no stranger to outspoken comments. This is a character who has openly derided agents as “greedy piranhas” and never shies away from persecuting individual players, even if they play for Bayern. One of Hoeneß’s most potent trigger-points is the financial excess of the Premier League, which operates on a wildly different model to the fan-owned clubs of the Bundesliga.
Liverpool exemplified this financial heft over the summer with a total outlay of almost £450 million ($595.1 million). Bayern, by way of comparison, have spent around £370 million over the past three years combined.
Uli Hoeneß talking into a microphone.
Uli Hoeneß is always good for a quote. / Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images
Even in the face of this expenditure, Liverpool have desperately struggled to defend their Premier League title. Sunday’s 2–0 victory over relegation-scrapping West Ham United ended a ruinous run of nine defeats in 12 games. Hoeneß did not bother hiding his schadenfreude.
“They spent €500 million and are having a disastrous season,” he cackled in front of 10,000 spectators at a business event in Munich’s Olympic Hall which was covered by BILD. “In my opinion, that’s because they only have superstars. They only have chiefs and no Indians—I shouldn’t even say that, they’re indigenous people.”
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Florian Wirtz
Florian Wirtz has yet to find the back of the net for Liverpool. / Alex Grimm/Getty Images
Adding to Hoeneß’s bitterness was the fact that Liverpool directly beat Bayern to the race for Wirtz’s signature.
The veteran football director was in contact with the player’s family throughout the summer and at one point looked to have secured a figure he publicly rated as the best German talent in the world. Yet, Liverpool swooped in, sealing what was then a club-record £116 million deal which Bayern’s sporting director Max Eberl admitted to be out of the club’s price range.
“I always say: In Liverpool, they’ll soon have to play with five balls because the stars won’t give up any of them. Poor Florian Wirtz, he doesn’t even get a ball because [Mohamed] Salah and [Dominik] Szoboszlai and all the others want to play with their own,” Hoeneß hissed.
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The Bayern chief is not the first to make the point that Wirtz is taking far fewer touches in the attacking third of the pitch than he did in the Bundesliga—although Bayer Leverkusen’s Simon Rolfes explained it a little more diplomatically.
Hoeneß doubled down on his criticism of Wirtz’s transfer, sensationally accusing Slot of lying to get the deal done. “Obviously, manager Slot promised him something he’s not keeping,” the former Germany international huffed.
“He clearly promised him he’d get the No. 10 jersey. He was very particular about that. And he also promised he’d build a new team around him. Nonsense! The fact is, he’s now playing with No. 7, and his new team is playing everything but around Florian Wirtz. And with as many defeats as Liverpool have suffered, the season is practically over.”
Florian Wirtz, Arne Slot
Slot had plenty of supportive words for Wirtz. / Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/Getty Images
Hoeneß’s sharpened barbs came at an odd time. Mere hours earlier, Wirtz had delivered arguably the best performance of his Liverpool career to date.
Operating in the No. 10 role he favours (even if he was still wearing No. 7) with Dominik Szoboszlai to his right rather than Mohamed Salah, the diminutive playmaker tiptoed between the tight lines of West Ham’s rearguard. Wirtz only created one chance—which Alexander Isak blazed high over the bar from the edge of the box—but was constantly knitting Liverpool’s attacking play together.
It was the German’s jinking move which carved open space for Cody Gakpo to tee up Isak for the game’s opening goal. As Slot surmised, it was “a good game” for the returning schemer.
“We tried to create an extra midfielder and he was very important for us to find every time the extra midfielder,” Slot explained.
“He was good when he made a dribble, he was really good in his one-touch balls, I even remember a moment when he played the ball diagonally in the 18-yard box to Cody Gakpo, which then didn’t lead to a shot so no xG value. We had many of those moments and he was part of many of those moment.”
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