How is his style of play best described for those who haven’t seen him play?
He’s just a great dribbler, he’s just great at going past people. I spoke to Xabi Alonso about him around 18 months ago when I was over in Leverkusen and he said, ‘Look, tactics are just a shape and I trust the players to interpret everything as they see fit on the pitch. But Flo gets a little bit more freedom than everyone else.’ He trusted him to use his dribbling, his passing and his goalscoring ability in just the right spots. He was given that bit of freedom.
He’s kind of given that freedom for Germany to a certain extent. The fact Julian Nagelsmann has often used the 4-2-2-2 that has been the house style at RB Leipzig and a lot of the Red Bull clubs for ages has really worked when he transplanted it to Germany in Euro 2024. A lot of people thought they couldn’t get both Jamal Musiala and Wirtz in the same team. Nagelsmann was like, ‘Actually, in the 4-2-2-2 you can because we’re going to have two No.10s.’ It worked really well.
How influential was he in Leverkusen’s stunning 2023-24 campaign that saw them win a league and cup double as part of a record-breaking unbeaten run?
Hugely influential. When Alonso took over, he’d just come back from an ACL [injury] and it took him a while to get going again. I think the way that Alonso managed him as well in the title-winning game – when he came on as sub and scored a hat-trick against Werder Bremen – no-one is dropping Wirtz from the XI. But I think the fact Alonso dared to drop all of his good players at some point kept them fresh, and that was certainly the case for Florian Wirtz.
Where do you see him fitting in Arne Slot’s system at Liverpool?
I have this little theory that it might give Liverpool a bit of flexibility. If you played him ostensibly in the middle of a front three, so if that three was Wirtz in the middle, [Mohamed] Salah right, maybe [Luis] Diaz or [Cody] Gakpo on the left, the fact that Wirtz can kind of drop out – he can still get in those advanced positions and score goals – it maybe makes a front two. We know that those guys can all play in central positions, they’re all great goalscorers.
