What Florian Wirtz’s decision to join Liverpool shows about his ambition

When Florian Wirtz was 18, he was interviewed by Bayer Leverkusen’s club magazine. The headline was a quote from the teenager: “I have big dreams”. If he leaves, as looks likely, it will be after making Leverkusen’s biggest come true and yet while showing he didn’t share the dream of many a star at Germany’s other clubs. From Lothar Matthaus to Leon Goretzka and Leroy Sane, they gravitated to Bayern, given their guarantee of trophies. The Bavarian dominance in the 21st century has been aided by an ability to raid the rest of Germany for their prized assets. Michael Ballack, taken from Leverkusen, was a pioneer. Jonathan Tah, going from Leverkusen this summer, follows in his footsteps, just as Dortmund were plundered when they represented Bayern’s major rivals.

Not Wirtz, though. A player who can weave his way past defenders is plotting a different path: to Liverpool. It is a dream with a big price, Liverpool’s second bid amounting to €109m (£92m), Leverkusen still wanting more. It shows a certain ambition and audacity at Anfield: to target and tempt Wirtz. Logic suggested Wirtz would be paired with Jamal Musiala at Bayern, Germany’s two generational talents together for club and country. Yet, Tah’s decision notwithstanding, this Leverkusen have displayed a capacity to frustrate Bayern. Their maiden Bundesliga title ended the Bavarians’ run at 11 in a row. Xabi Alonso rejected Bayern’s advances to stay another year, Real Madrid instead his preferred destination. Now Wirtz is set to become Liverpool’s new Jurgen Klopp: a man Bayern had wanted but never got.

The similarities with Klopp may end there. Wirtz has a different kind of charisma; with the ball at his feet, caressing it, sometimes with the simplicity of a master, sometimes with a crowd-pleasing flair. He has a capacity to catch opponents out with deft footwork; in a different way, Liverpool demonstrated their own with an approach that almost came by stealth.

He would be a statement signing: win the title and then buy perhaps the most coveted player on the market this summer. Wirtz is an illustration that Fenway Sports Group and Liverpool can go very big: not often, normally when they have earned the right to and, encouragingly, usually successfully. Virgil van Dijk and Alisson were the £140m pair acquired for world-record fees. Relative to the prices previous centre-backs and goalkeepers cost, there was a case for arguing they paid over the odds; yet they bought players who were both among the best in the game in their position then and who still are now. The false economy would have been to spend less on lesser players. Wirtz, they may hope, becomes a similar case.

Darwin Nunez has proved otherwise, but then his signing owed more to Klopp. Wirtz will join when Arne Slot’s dealings are underpinned by the axis of the returning Michael Edwards and the relatively new sporting director Richard Hughes. He may be still be cheaper than Moises Caicedo might have been: Liverpool’s £111m bid in 2023 remains an oddity, and they instead constructed a title-winning midfield for lower fees, but it again shows they will stretch the budget. Wirtz can be seen as a reward for relative austerity, for making a profit last summer.

He would be, though, a coup that raises questions. The most immediate may be where he will play. There might have looked a more natural vacancy at Manchester City, with Kevin de Bruyne going, with a central creator required. At Liverpool, Dominik Szoboszlai is forever running but going nowhere. The Hungarian had a huge importance as a presser, a hassler, a harrier and a man who did some of Mohamed Salah’s defending. There were days when he was incisive: he was wonderful in a week that brought back-to-back wins over City and Newcastle, for instance.

Yet Slot often says a midfielder for Liverpool has to score goals and Szoboszlai’s return can be slight, given his class. Wirtz offers more creativity, more end product after 34 goals in his last two seasons at Leverkusen; six of them came in this year’s Champions League alone, albeit largely against weaker teams in the group.

So simply an upgrade as a No 10? It may not be that simple. Slot experimented with Szoboszlai as a No 8 at the end of the season. The Hungarian could still have a considerable role to play. And it does feel pertinent that, whereas there had been an expectation Liverpool would devote much of their budget to a striker this summer, they are instead committing it to an attacking midfielder. Luis Diaz was a qualified success when reinvented as a No 9 but Diogo Jota arguably regressed over the season. There were reasons to think the attacking upgrade would come in the centre of the attack, perhaps with Diaz competing with Cody Gakpo on the left.

Alonso made few mistakes in his two-and-a-half years in Leverkusen but playing Wirtz as a false nine in the 2024 Europa League final against Atalanta may have been one of them. Nevertheless, one of Liverpool’s finest performances of the season occurred in a striker-less 4-2-2-2, with Szoboszlai and Curtis Jones as twin No 10s against City.

Slot soon abandoned the tactic, compelling as it seemed. At Feyenoord he built around a prolific centre-forward, in Santiago Gimenez. But there are reasons to revive it and a temptation to wonder if Wirtz, though very different, could take on the mantle of Roberto Firmino as the central conductor, with quick, wide raiders ahead of him (his Leverkusen teammate Jeremie Frimpong among them).

Whatever the tactical idea, and further summer signings could help answer that, Wirtz looks the future of Liverpool. He can form part of the succession to Salah: not directly, as another right winger would be required for that. But he is a decade the Egyptian’s junior. For most of the last decade, it has helped Liverpool’s other attackers that Salah shouldered so much responsibility that the burden on them was reduced. They could score in his slipstream. Even as Salah has his new deal, his era may be entering its final couple of years. Perhaps Wirtz’s big dream was to become Liverpool’s main man.