It’s all but confirmed by now, but the latest rounds of reporting coming out of both Germany and England suggest that Bayer Leverkusen’s Florian Wirtz has chosen to join Liverpool instead of Bayern Munich. Very recent conversations with Liverpool manager Arne Slot are said to have played a key factor in Wirtz choosing the Premier League champions over the Bundesliga champions, but this would put to end what has been a long, and very public pursuit of Wirtz from Bayern.
All of the financial planning for the summer from Max Eberl and Christoph Freund was centered around bringing in Wirtz from Leverkusen, but now, if he does, in fact, go on and join Liverpool, they will need to look for alternatives. They already have shortlists, but it is still a massive miss to not get Wirtz.
Despite Liverpool and Bayern having locked horns to try to win the Wirtz race, former Germany and Die Werkself manager Rudi Völler felt that the playmaker should have stayed in Leverkusen for at least another season. “My preferred solution would be for him to stay in Leverkusen for another year and then move. But I don’t know whether that will happen. In the end it’s also a question of price. Leverkusen is a club that has to say yes at some point when a certain amount is reached. If it’s not reached, then he stays another year,” Völler recently stressed (via @iMiaSanMia).
1. FSV Mainz 05 v Bayer 04 Leverkusen - Bundesliga Photo by Jörg Schüler/Bayer 04 Leverkusen via Getty Images
Bayer Leverkusen had held on to hope that he might stay but also realize the financial opportunity of selling him this summer. From an economic standpoint, especially after the club lost Xabi Alonso, it’s hard to say no to a massive offer for Wirtz.