“I’m here to be the best player in the world.”
That quote didn’t come from the 22-year-old Florian Wirtz, who arrived at Liverpool for up to £116 million in the summer of 2025. It wasn’t a confident statement of intent from football’s most sought-after available talent, hailed among the game’s elite talents.
No. This was the unproven 16-year-old kid from Cologne who’d just crossed the River Rhine to play for Bayer Leverkusen.
And it was spoken to a manager asking a teenager if he felt ready for first-team football.
The self-belief was there from the start.
So, when external doubts arose amid a challenging start to his Anfield career, it should be no surprise that Wirtz outwardly displayed none.
There were no murmurs of discontent and no social media outbursts. He got his head down and set about allowing his football to do the talking.
Those who’d studied Wirtz’s early years also knew a few months without a goal contribution – and the resulting media criticism and social media banter – weren’t about to derail a career meticulously planned-out among his family off the field and supremely executed on the grass.
To realise why, you must go back to the very start...
Wirtz, then a teenage prospect, travelled the 10 short miles from Cologne for Leverkusen in January 2020.
The move was considered controversial due to an understanding between three Bundesliga clubs in the region – Cologne, Leverkusen and Monchengladbach – they would not poach each other’s academy talents and help ensure each could remain competitive against the might of Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich.
The Wirtz camp, however, felt his hometown club were unable to meet his lofty ambitions and sought the exit. With his family keen that he finished his schooling close to home, Leverkusen was the choice.
"My switch to Leverkusen at under-17 level was solely my decision, as I saw better prospects for myself in Leverkusen - and it worked out that way too," Wirtz would later say, matter-of-factly.
Back in 2020, Bayer’s then-sporting director Rudi Voller played down the controversy, claiming Wirtz wasn’t signed a youth player, but one immediately ready for the first team.
It was a finagle of sorts, but no lies were told.
Bild journalist Phillip Arens, who has covered the player’s entire career, told Blood Red magazine Wirtz was almost immediately integrated into the first-team set-up after excelling in early training sessions.
When the pandemic shut down schools and Wirtz’s ability to train, Leverkusen coach Peter Bosz made lemonade from lemons.
Arens recalls: “During this break, the club said: ‘You were planned to join the professionals in the summer, so why not use the time to test you now?’ And Florian made such a big impact.
“Peter Bosz asked Florian: ‘Do you feel I can put you in the first team?’ And Florian said: ‘Coach, I’m here to be the best player in the world’.”
Six years on, that goal feels achievable. Liverpool’s most exciting signing in over a decade is on his way to becoming the star of the show.
Justifying the price tag and the reputation.
In this difficult and deeply underwhelming season – or ‘transitional’ to use the term preferred by those keeping the faith withArne Slot and the Anfield hierarchy – Wirtz has emerged as the Reds’ main creative weapon, especially since the turn of the year.
The attack, for all its continuing flaws, now looks most effective when the German international is the conduit.
At times, he’s been a joy to watch. There’s an ease to which he plays and moves around the field. The dancing feet to move him away from defenders, incisive and perfectly timed passes. The space he finds where there is none.
“He gets you off your feet. He reminds me of Peter Beardsley in his movement and close skills,” says a man who should know, Liverpool legend John Aldridge.
Aldridge, who won the League in 1988 and the FA Cup in 1989 alongside Beardsley in Kenny Dalglish’s great side, said: “Peter was a little bit more direct in going for goal, but if he’s anything like Peter, he comes highly recommended.
“Wirtz is the type of player I’d have enjoyed playing with. Waiting for the little balls through and in behind, and the way he takes defenders away.
“He’s so brilliant on the ball that he’s quickly got two or three defenders around him.
“The beauty of that is there’s other people in space. Once he lifts his head, he can create for the players around him and they’ll only benefit.”
Amid that growing ease, there’s also strength. Wirtz is more assertive and demanding of the ball.
There’s more zip on his passes. He’s physically fitter and stronger. He isn’t hitting a wall after 60 minutes.
The instances of him being muscled off the ball are dwindling, but that’s aided by the increased speed of thought in his distribution.
Aldridge also puts it down to the work in the gym.
“It’s a strong league and when he’s had the time, he’s put five or six pounds of muscle on. And he’s not looked back. It has helped him enormously,” he says.
The main character energy is now there and his team-mates are responding. Particularly fellow summer arrival Hugo Ekitike There’s an air of Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres about them.
Wirtz himself has six goals since Christmas, with high quality strikes against Wolves, Newcastle United, Burnley and Barnsley among them. He now has nine assists in total.
That highly publicised barren run of zero goal contributions through the first 18 games – as much down to team-mates’ profligacy as Wirtz issues adapting to the English game – might now be in the past, but it’s important to keep in mind.
It speaks to the player’s strength of character.
The faith that took him from Cologne to Leverkusen and the faith that enabled him to reject assured success with Bayern – the logical route chosen by so many young German talents when outgrowing their clubs like Leverkusen and Dortmund – and earmark Liverpool as the best place to reach the next level.
“Of course, I would have liked to have scored a goal or collected a few assists,” he said in late September, days after being left on the bench for the Merseyside derby.
“No matter what anyone says, I’m staying cool. I know what I’m capable of, and I also know that I’ll really bring it to the pitch at some point.”
‘Some point’ has arrived.
After joining Leverkusen, Wirtz’s first task was to make up the numbers. An injury crisis before the team’s Europa League trip to Glasgow Rangers meant he and other under-19 players were required for an 11-vs-11 practice game.
Arens, who watched the session, says it was immediately apparent to the established pros that “he was something special, that he was not a normal under-19 player. He was not anxious. He already had the physical strength. When they were having a lunch in the kitchen, some players talked. They didn't really know who Florian Wirtz was. Is this the guy coming from Cologne?”
In May of 2020 as German football resumed behind closed doors, Wirtz would become the first team’s youngest ever player: 17 years and 15 days, surpassing Kai Havertz.
His first Bundesliga goal that June – past Bayern and Manuel Neuer – made him the competition’s youngest ever scorer.
And, by the time the return leg with Rangers was played in August, Wirtz had established himself as a starter.
“He broke record after record,” Arens adds. “The youngest Leverkusen player, youngest player to score, youngest to play and score in Europe. All the records you can find.”
Indeed, the two years following the move from Cologne were almost entirely ascendant. A contract extension came in December 2020.
In January, he became the first player to register five Bundesliga goals before his 18th birthday. Then the first to 10 goals before his 19th. Then the youngest to make 50 Bundesliga appearances.
A year after joining Leverkusen, he was called up to the Germany senior squad. In September 2021 he won his first cap. He looked primed for a World Cup spot until a sick twist of fate.
“When he was at the peak of his young career, in March 2022, he had the [cruciate] knee ligament injury,” remembers Arens.
“This was a really bad thing. It happened against Cologne, his former club, where he grew up and was educated.
“A lot of Cologne fans hate him because he went to Leverkusen. When the ligament injury happened, he was laying on the ground when the medics came on.
“A lot of Cologne fans were jubilant, like it was a goal for them. And it was obvious this was a very, very bad scene.
“But Florian, as a guy, he accepted this injury very, very fast. Of course, as a club you say: ‘You’ll come back stronger than before’. It’s just a phrase, you know? But he came physically stronger than ever.
“Then Xabi Alonso became his coach.”
There ensued the most successful period in the history of Leverkusen.
A first ever Bundesliga title in 23/24. Shedding the ‘Neverkusen’ title. A domestic double followed with the German Cup. They were undefeated until the season’s final game – the Europa League final against Atalanta.
Wirtz was named Bundesliga player of the season, ending the campaign with 18 goals and 20 assists in all competitions, while Alonso, manager of the season.
But while Alonso may have been calling the shots from the sidelines, on the pitch Wirtz was conducting the orchestra.
“There was a particular scene when, as a sub, he scored his first ever professional hat-trick to make Leverkusen the German champions,” Bild’s Phillip Arens recalls.
“After his second goal the pitch was flooded by fans. And he was saying: ‘Hey come on, calm down’, and waving his hand at the fans to keep away from the pitch.
“This photograph became sport photo of the year in Germany. It was titled silenced jubilee or something like this.
“He was the main character for Leverkusen to become champions. For Florian, this title of being German champion with Leverkusen meant everything. It’s something unreal because normally, you don't have this chance. Only if Bayern Munich fail.
“Last year, after Cologne was beaten in the German Cup quarter-final, he was appointed by the Ultras in the North Stand to climb the fence, to celebrate and to shout into the megaphone.
“And this was the only time Florian Wirtz did this. This was something very special for the fans.”
It was the closest the fans, who christened him 'Fussballgott', would get to a proper farewell.
Despite the near-perfect season the prior year, Leverkusen had hit a ceiling. For Florian Wirtz and Alonso, to elevate their careers further meant leaving. A 4-0 defeat at Anfield in November 2024 may have underscored that point.
“Leverkusen was quite good in the game,” Arens recalls. “It was 0-0 at half-time. But Liverpool won 4-0 and Florian was very upset when he left the pitch. I think in these moments, he knew he’d reached his peak in Leverkusen. So, he had to go elsewhere. To a club like Liverpool.
“He was totally impressed by the facilities there and, as far as we are concerned, the personal contact between Arne Slot and Florian – the plans for how he will be involved and how he could play – impressed him very much. So, he decided to go to Liverpool.
“I said he will fit into the English game very well because he has the mentality, not only to shine as a player, on the pitch, but to compete, to fight.
“He could easily have gone to Bayern Munich. Sure. But Florian always chooses a different, more difficult way. To show, ‘I'm better than the other.’”
The idea of former Anfield favourite Alonso linking up again with Wirtz is certainly appealing to plenty of Liverpool supporters.
Should the Reds hierarchy decide Slot isn’t the man to lead the club into next season, the Spaniard is the overwhelming fans’ favourite to take over – at least among the candidates who are both realistic and available.
Alonso’s Liverpool connections – part of a midfield Anfield once serenaded as the best in the world – are central to those desires.
But the relationship with Wirtz – and the abundant success it brought – is perhaps the best case to be made.
Arens said: “Xabi and Florian was a very particular relationship because he had all the freedom to grow in the game and on the pitch. Xabi said Florian makes us better as a team, and he makes me better as a manager. He said it several times.”
Slot is getting a tune from Wirtz now.
However, the prospect of a more permanent reunion with Alonso – beyond Real Madrid’s visit to Anfield in November 2025 – remains a prospect in the future.
A year after their visit to Anfield together with Leverkusen, Alonso was asked to address Wirtz’s early struggles.
The the then Madrid boss said: “Flo is a special player, he has the quality, he’s competitive so when he makes that tweak it has happened with great players during the years in the Premier League.
“I have no doubts with Flo. He was so special. And probably one of the reasons I am here is because of Flo. So, I am thankful for him.”
The images of Madrid’s Alonso and Liverpool’s Wirtz and Jeremie Frimpong (another key member of the title-winning team) talking behind the scenes at Anfield proved sentimental for Leverkusen fans back in Germany.
The idea of a more permanent reunion at Anfield would likely please them further.
“Of course, they had a big team in Leverkusen, but not the highest level in European or even in world football,” Arens said.
“On another stage, on another level, with other [high calibre] players… I don't know if you can turn back the time. But of course, I think Xabi and Florian would be a perfect match again.”
While Wirtz’s fortunes did improve at his new club. Alonso’s didn’t. He’s currently out of a job.
After the slow start to his Anfield career, the idea that Wirtz could become the best player in the world seems feasible again.
Now it may be about whether Liverpool – coaches, executives and team-mates – can meet his ambitions.
