After his rapid rise at Leverkusen, Liverpool’s new club-record signing is well set to step outside his comfort zone
W
hen the Bayern Munich charm offensive starts in earnest, few players are impervious to it. When months of public flattery and declarations of interest in Florian Wirtz continued past the Rekordmeister’s title celebrations in Marienplatz and the departure of Xabi Alonso from Bayer Leverkusen, the whole of German football felt they knew which way the wind was blowing.
So it is an unpleasant surprise to Munich’s finest to see the red jersey Wirtz is holding up for the camera is not theirs, but that of Liverpool, who have signed him in a record £116m deal. Make no mistake: this is an authentic coup for the Premier League champions. How Wirtz came to choose a future in north-west England rather than southern Germany tells us much about the personality, as well as the player.
The 22-year-old has been in the full glare of the limelight since he was 16. He made the controversial move from Köln to Leverkusen, was fast-tracked to the first team and given a full debut by Peter Bosz to surpass Kai Havertz as the club’s youngest player a fortnight after his 17th birthday. Nineteen days later he became the club’s youngest goalscorer in a defeat by Bayern. Wirtz has made every stage – becoming a regular starter, playing European football, making his Germany debut at 18 – look easy without the peacocking that often goes with such extravagant talent. When his pre-Euro 2024 ranking of potato dishes on the German football federation’s TikTok account went viral (he put a “normal” potato at No 1, with much public amusement following), he grumpily remarked: “I don’t find it entertaining at all.”
