It’s been no secret that Liverpool are in pole position to sign Germany’s top young player, midfielder Florian Wirtz, from Bayer Leverkusen. Club connected journalists have been reporting with sourced detail that Wirtz has already traveled to Merseyside and that conversations with LFC leadership has turned his head.
All of this emerging in the span of a few days in the latter part of this past week would be pretty shocking on its own. Late yesterday, though, quotes emerged from Bayern Munich leadership that confirmed on their end what we know: Wirtz prefers the red of Liverpool to that of Bayern.
Speaking at a fan festival, Bayern President Herbert Hainer had this so say:
“Max Eberl [Bayern’s director of sport] informed me that Florian Wirtz is probably leaning towards Liverpool.”
It’s a small thing and there’s still the heavy lifting being done by the word “probably” in the sentence, but it does confirm what is the biggest shock of it all: Liverpool might have pipped Bayern Munich to signing a generational German talent.
I don’t know that there’s a Premier League team that resonates with the English consciousness the way Bayern Munich does. At least, none where top English start would seem fated to feature in the same way that almost every elite German player of their generation would necessarily pass through the Bavarian club’s doors.
Yet, here we are with most journalists signaling that this is more if than when for Liverpool. We won’t count our signings until we see that lean, of course, but this is a big boost to receive on Championship Sunday.