One Liverpool player has been likened to William Tell after enjoying an ‘outstanding’ performance for his country on Friday night.
Florian Wirtz was the star of the show as Germany edged Switzerland in a 4-3 thriller, with the 22-year-old scoring twice and providing two assists, and his first goal was a jaw-dropping strike from the corner of the penalty area.
The Reds’ number 7 was unsurprisingly lauded by his nation’s media after his starring performance in Basel, with some glowing reviews thrust in his direction.
Frankfurter Rundschau hailed him as the ‘best player on the pitch’, while BILD proclaimed: ‘Wow, Wirtz! Our lynchpin in attack’. Der Spiegel praised him as ‘the best German player’ and a ‘whirlwind on the left wing’, while Sport1 said he was ‘simply outstanding’ and ‘brimming with enthusiasm’.
The most vivid appraisal of all came from Martin Schneider in Süddeutsche Zeitung, who wrote: ‘He completely dominated the game, especially in the second half. Gregor Kobel initially prevented him from scoring, but then unleashed an incredibly precise and unstoppable shot from the left edge of the penalty area into the top right corner, reminiscent of William Tell’s famous strike to the apple.
‘He crowned his extraordinary performance with his second stunning goal, again into the top right corner, for a 4-3 victory.’
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Such are the expectations on the Germany national team that their media don’t tend to dole out glowing praise too freely, so for Wirtz to be the recipient of such bombastic reviews is indicative of how magnificent he was for his country on Friday night.
It made for quite a contrast to Craig Burley’s recent gripe that the 22-year-old has been ‘a bit of a waste’ at Liverpool this season and may even need to be sold if his output doesn’t improve (six goals in 40 games so far).
His stunning first goal was the obvious highlight, but the playmaker’s overall performance against Switzerland was superb, as substantiated by his underlying statistics from Sofascore.
Perhaps Wirtz’s goal return in his first few months at Anfield hasn’t quite been as prolific as one might’ve expecred at the start of the campaign, but anyone who’s watched him regularly over the past few months would testify that he’s an absolute diamond of a footballer.
If he carries over his performance from last night into the World Cup in the summer, we can safely assume that Germany won’t be subjected to a repeat of their group-stage exits in 2018 and 2022.
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