Mediawatch can hardly blame Liverpool fans for seeing what they want to see in Florian Wirtz’s (losing) performance against Portugal on Wednesday night, but we can blame some supposedly serious outlets for leaning so far into the narrative that it’s a surprise they didn’t topple right over into the this-means-more mud.
This is the top story on MailOnline‘s football page on Thursday morning. The very top story.
Liverpool target Florian Wirtz puts in crunching tackle on Man United star Bruno Fernandes and rows with Bernardo Silva in Germany’s defeat by Portugal
This is the ‘crunching tackle’ supposedly put in by Wirtz on Fernandes:
Florian Wirtz has just done this tackle on Bruno Fernandes 😮💨 pic.twitter.com/oMZjm0GFIg
— Paul🥷 (@l4pablo) June 4, 2025
It’s so very obviously a (very good) tackle from Fernandes on Wirtz in which the German accidentally steps on Fernandes that Mediawatch is thinking we must have lost our actual minds.
And yet we are told that Wirtz ‘won the praise of some Liverpool fans online for a crunching, studs-up tackle on Manchester United skipper Fernandes in the first half’.
It wasn’t even his tackle; why are we enabling the lunatics by pretending that Wirtz has crunched anything ‘studs up’ (that would be a very weird way to run with the ball) when he has a) been dispossessed and b) accidentally stepped on his opponent?
We are then told that things ‘escalated’ in the second half. Just when you thought it could not get more incendiary…
During a Germany attack, Wirtz as tripped by Silva on the half-way line and himself stayed on the ground in pain. A few minutes later, off the ball, there was an altercation.
The two players – who could have been team-mates had City not pulled out of their pursuit of Wirtz – went almost head-to-head when Silva hit the deck, seemingly claiming he had been stood on.
Wirtz tried to lift the 30-year-old up from the floor, but Fernandes raced in and pulled the German away from the scene.
This is the ‘head-to-head altercation’ in full. Be careful because this is NSFW:
Things got heated when Florian Wirtz couldn’t take it anymore bro had to step on Bernardo Silva. That’s when Bruno stepped in. pic.twitter.com/JnxGFENig6
— Fondre (@UTDFondre) June 5, 2025
These two events constitute ‘a heated battle with Bruno Fernandes’, presumably by somebody who has either a) never seen an actual game of football or b) been told to get a ‘Florian Wirtz – worra lad’ headline out of a Nations League semi-final regardless of actual events.
Over at The Sun:
A collision with Manchester United captain Fernandes got plenty of Liverpool fans off their seats.
Both men challenge for a loose ball, with Fernandes going to ground as he slid along the turf.
Yet with each star stretching out a leg, Wirtz ended up raking the Red Devils skipper along the side of his ankle.
Now it’s a ‘rake’! We have now watched this video approximately 427 times and, well, like f*ck it’s either a ‘studs-up challenge’ or a ‘rake’.
The Mirror double down, writing that Fernandes was floored by ‘a studs up challenge from Wirtz’. Nope, never happened.
Their headline?
Florian Wirtz leaves Liverpool fans all saying the same thing as Bruno Fernandes fumes
Fernandes did indeed ‘fume’. For a few seconds. But we suspect that winning the actual match – something that most reports try not to mention – cheered him the hell up.
The Mirror are not letting go of this narrative with a second update:
Bernardo Silva says referee ‘doesn’t know rules’ after Florian Wirtz enrages Bruno Fernandes
Silva is literally talking about offside, but let’s not linger on that when we can imply that Wirtz got away with a ‘studs-up challenge’ on Fernandes.
Talking of ‘enrage’, which is clearly the new ‘fumes’…
‘Florian Wirtz has already enraged Man Utd fans ahead of Liverpool transfer’ claim the never-knowingly-undersold SPORTbible. Let’s see the first example of all this rage…
‘Let’s see how Wirtz feels when Cas and Ugarte tag team him when he comes to OT.’
Woah. Rattled, much?!
Away from all those altercations and clashes, talkSPORT shamelessly toady up to Liverpool fans by calling Wirtz’s performance against Portugal – in which he did not create a single chance’ – a ‘scintillating performance’ in which he ‘dazzled’.
Odd then that in actual Germany, where they are not trying to court the clicks of Liverpool fans, Bild described him as ‘barely visible’ besides his goal, Sport1 noted that he ‘largely disappeared’ on a night when Germany ‘desperately needed his genius’ and Sky Germany say he ‘disappointed’.
And none of them thought to mention the studs-up, raking challenge that left everybody pure enraged.
READ: Five reasons why Florian Wirtz may not actually be a good signing for Liverpool