Paul Gorst takes a look at what has made Florian Wirtz the object of a club-record transfer negotiation between Liverpool and Bayer Leverkusen
Florian Wirtz before a Bayer Leverkusen game
(Image: Bayer 04 Leverkusen)
As one of 10 children, Florian Wirtz is well versed in the importance of family. So when he approached a major crossroads of a brilliant young career last month, the Bayer Leverkusen star naturally sought the counsel of his parents.
Mother Karin and father - and agent - Hans have been instrumental in guiding the path for the 22-year-old so far, and with their steady hand, the attacking midfielder has risen from a junior footballer with his dad's SV Grun-Weiss Brauweiler side to continental stardom as the jewel of Leverkusen.
"My family has always been very important to me, they have always supported me," Wirtz told Sports Illustrated last month. "My parents encouraged me and my sister (Werder Bremen's Juliane Wirtz) to pursue our dream and helped us along the way. My parents played a big part in me becoming a professional footballer. They were at every game, my mother even at every training session. I am very lucky to have such a family."
"His parents go to every game and dote on him ridiculously," Bundesliga expert Ed McCambridge tells the ECHO. "They have instilled in him the belief that money is not the most important factor in a football career.
"He is very family-oriented and he has the sort of football arrogance that you want to see from a player on the pitch but off it he is very grounded with family values and with Xabi Alonso guiding him with his parents, he wanted to make sure he ticked all the boxes as a person as well as a player."
So when interest from Bundesliga behemoth Bayern Munich became clear alongside Premier League rivals Manchester City and champions Liverpool, some thinking time was needed for the Wirtz family as they sat down to plot what would come next for the Bundesliga player of the year.
An end-of-season holiday in Corsica made for some picturesque updates for the Instagram account, but behind the scenes, talks remained ongoing in the inner circle establish just what he should do next. A move to England appealed to someone keen to experience something outside his comfort zone but the elixir of Bayern is uniquely intoxicating for German-born footballers. Most of them, at least.
A year removed from starring for Leverkusen as they went the entire Bundesliga campaign unbeaten to win their first-ever title alongside a German Cup, there appeared to be few frontiers left to explore as a Die Werkself player. Knocked down to the runners-up spot by a resurgent Bayern this time out, the opportunity to move directly to the biggest club in his homeland surely appealed.
There was the prospect of essentially succeeding Kevin De Bruyne as the creative fulcrum of Manchester City too, and the chance to spearhead a return to prominence under Pep Guardiola, like the overtures from Bayern, must also have been an enticing offer.
It was the pitch from the Premier League champions, however, that has won the race, leaving Liverpool now locked in negotiations with Bayer over a deal that will be a club-record transfer at Anfield. At the time of writing, a bid of £109m has been tabled and rejected by sporting director Simon Rolfes and managing director Fernando Carro but there remains a determination to reach an accord.
What is perhaps somewhat refreshing in the modern game is how the champions of England have been able to nudge themselves to the front of the queue for Wirtz without promising a king's ransom on the bottom line of their contract offer.
Liverpool, while hardly paupers in the modern game, will not have been able to offer the sort of wages that will have blown City or Bayern out the water and there is a feeling that the green light to pass to the negotiating table with Leverkusen has been earned through an exciting football-based pitch of where Wirtz will fit in at Anfield.
"When I moved from Cologne to Leverkusen, I didn't think for a single second about my salary, but only about what was best for my career," Wirtz revealed in May. "I also don't even think about how much money I have in my account or what I could earn in the future.
"Of course, you should make sure that you get a good contract. But the sporting perspective is much more important for me than the money. And I think my parents would get mad if I was too fixated on money.
"After I moved to Leverkusen at the age of 16, my parents managed my salary and transferred me 150 euros a month. That shaped me. It was important to my parents that I didn't do anything nonsensical with my salary."
It's easy to see why Wirtz, alongside Bayern's Jamal Musiala, has emerged as the golden boy of German football in recent years. Since the start of last season, the attacking midfielder has contributed 23 assists and 21 goals but it is his unseen work that will have endeared him to Arne Slot. Since the start of last season, no player has won the ball in the final third more than Wirtz and his 383 successful duels this term is bettered only by Bochum's Ibrahima Sissoko. There is a quiet steel to the obvious silk.
"He has been the orchestrator and the conductor," says Four-Four-Two's McCambridge. "His movement between the lines is fantastic and most of his best work goes unseen because it is about finding that space to work in. He is very much like Thomas Muller in that respect and he might even take that mantle now in German football now Muller has hung up his boots.
"He also reminds me a lot of Kevin De Bruyne. He has that delicate weight of pass in him, the ability to see it, to play it, threading the passes but he also has a lethal shot on him. No-one batted an eyelid when he won the Bundesliga player of the year because he deserved it.
"He was fantastic last season, Wirtz was head and shoulders above the rest. Manchester City are losing Kevin De Bruyne so it felt like that could have been a natural replacement but it is Liverpool who are likely getting him now and it is such a smart move for everyone concerned."
Dubbed by the Bundesliga website itself as a "creative force of nature", Wirtz became the youngest player to feature for Leverkusen in the top flight back in May 2020, when, aged 17 years and 15 days, he turned out against Werder Bremen. The following month, he netted his first goal, when he registered against Bayern to become the division's youngest scorer at the age of 17 years and 34 days. He then became the youngest to score five goals in Germany's top flight before turning 18.
Such has been his precocious nature, in fact, that he was forced to miss a Europa League game against Slavia Prague in December 2020 due to an A Level exam he was sitting. "[My parents] taught me to live a lifestyle that is good for me and not to neglect school," he says.
"You have to give special players like Flo the possibility to do special things on the pitch," says former boss Xabi Alonso, who describes his one-time playmaker as "one of the best players in the world".
It was former Reds midfielder Alonso who was able to coax a world-class level out of Wirtz during their time together at the BayArena. The youngster was making his way back from a serious knee injury when Alonso joined Leverkusen in October of 2022 and while the players were given some time off as the mid-season World Cup was held in Qatar, the ex-Spain international was keen to get a closer look at what he had on his hands once Wirtz was back to 100%.
Alonso, as the story goes, wanted to see the starlet in action, so took to taking part in five-a-side games with Wirtz during the mid-season break in an effort to establish just how he might be able to utilise him upon his return to action.
"I think Wirtz felt very honoured by that," says McCambridge. "It made him feel special and I think Arne Slot might take some inspiration from that. I don't think Wirtz is going to be a diva or throw toys out the pram if not but clearly that feeling Alonso gave him was enough to inspire those sorts of performances. His work rate is second to none as well, he works his socks off."
Alonso and Wirtz grew to establish a famous relationship following those early training and recovery sessions and the midfielder was quick to pay tribute to his outgoing boss when it was confirmed he was leaving last month. "We shared so many unforgettable memories that will always stay in my heart and my head," he posted on his social media accounts.
If anyone is best positioned to offer career advice outside of Wirtz's parents, however, the Leverkusen star is fortunate enough to be able to tap into the wealth of Alonso's knowledge, who starred for both Liverpool and Bayern during one of the most decorated playing careers of the 21st century.
"He is world-class," Alonso said in his outgoing press conference at the BayArena. "Flo has a very mature mind. The people around him, his parents, they want the best for him. They are in a very important moment in his career. Whatever he does, I am really close to Flo, and I will be happy for him. Let's wait a little bit. It's normal in football that there are rumours, especially with such a special player."
How much of a march Liverpool were able to steal on Bayern through the German champions' complacency is unknown but reports in Leverkusen media that the Wirtz family were 'greatly irritated' by misplaced Munich confidence surely did not help their own pitch.
"Bayern will be gutted to have lost out on a player as good as Florian Wirtz," adds FFT's McCambridge, who also works for the Bundesliga itself. "In Germany Bayern are like Liverpool and Manchester United rolled into one, they just have this massive aura about them. They expect the best young players in Germany to want to play for them and that might have led to some hubris there that Florian Wirtz would want to join them.
"But Florian is also very smart, so he will have sat down with his parents when they were weighing up the move, saw the presence of Jamal Musiala and maybe realised there is a greater need for him at Liverpool. He will have seen that Liverpool are maybe lacking a more traditional No.10.
"Bayern just hoover up the best young talent in Germany and probably just assumed they were going to do the same for Wirtz but after sitting down with his parents, he obviously feels a move to the Premier League champions is for him. That makes Liverpool so dangerous now for next season.
"Wirtz will join a ready-made team of champions and with Mohamed Salah staying, he has someone to supply and take the limelight away from Wirtz that will help him settle."