Florian Wirtz - Leverkusen youngster

Let's get a thread in early, why not, we'll quite likely need it later

Young attacking midfielder, he had his professional debut for Leverkusen just two weeks ago, being in the quad for the first time too, on which occasion he became the youngest ever player to feature in Bundesliga for Leverkusen - 17 years and 15 days old.

Before, that had been Havertz' record with 17 years 126 days.
(youngest ever Bundesliga player record is still held by Sahin who had his BVB deubt with 16 years 334 days)

Now barely 3 weeks later he scored this beauty against Bayern, making him the youngest ever goalscorer in Bundesliga. That's a record he was able to take from Sahin.
One to watch.

https://streamable.com/pd18ab#

Who?

Where's the obscure stats? I'm disappointed.

Looks like Schalke will have quite a scrub in 4 years

the kid is something else entirely

biggest German talent in years

forget Havertz, forget Felix, hell forget Musiala

here is the next true elite player

Kind of reminds me of a mix of KDB and Pedri.

Though I think his hype would increase a lot more if he was left footed. Dribbling midfielders who aren’t particularly fast never look as aesthetic when they’re right footed.

He was amazing today, admittedly against a team that great players are supposed to play very good against.
Besides all the things he can do like his dribbling, his final pass, his goals, whenever I watch him play it’s almost always his touch and link up play that stands out. Even if he has a poor game in terms of not scoring, or his dribbling and final pass not working, like a genuinely great player does he always links play so well and therefore never has a truly bad performance from what I’ve seen.
His positioning and the way he receives the ball and uses his first touch is like a cheat code for building attacks. Leverkusen players don’t even need to be good at passing the ball forward, they just need to kick it at him at any pace and he makes it stick. I genuinely don’t think I’ve ever seen an 18 year old receive the ball between the lines as effectively as he does.
But then again maybe , somehow, the bundesliga is doing its voodoo again. But I can’t see how he would flop in any league tbh

Tore his ACL

why can't we have good things

Hope he can still turn and dribble when he comes back. But he probably has much less potential now.

Anyone who's watched him a lot who could talk on his potential ability to be reconverted into a deep lying playmaker type of CM? People are hyping up a possible reconversion into that kind of footballer but watching some footage of him if there's a player profile who I would actually compare him to it is that of someone like Dani Ceballos (although not even really him), rather than someone like Kroos. Wirtz looks like a CAM/SS than anything else.

Despite being 5 feet 10, which at first glance sounds like a functional height for a CM, and despite apparently being pretty nimble, press resistant, and good with his ball control/dribbling, Wirtz seems very scrawny and doesn't necessarily seem built for intense back and forth all action defensive play. He seems to be more of an attacking midfielder who plays in RAM/CAM zones of the pitch, and who drives the play forward and creates chances more from his carrying of the ball through dribbling and bursts of acceleration rather than elite vision or passing range. Seems the kind of player who accomplishes more defensively through pressing soon after the ball is lost rather than in any other way, and his assists/chances created/incisive play comes more from action directly just outside of the box or in the box and through short passing, all of this mostly coming from counter attack situations that he doesn't start but rather helps finish.

If you watch this video I think it embarrasses his passing ability, doesn't seem to have the innate talent that the truly elite passers have to spray passes at will.



And if you enter his name and compare him with Kroos for example in a comparison matrix such as Squawka's he is absolutely fulminated and destroyed in basically all defensive measures and all passing measures.

Not just this...

He doesn't even beat Dani Ceballos?!?! Who doesn't even get playing time to warm his confidence and play out.



I definitely am not seeing him in a CM role.

If anything he's coming off as overrated, even in his own role.

Edit:

Hmm, considering the context of his team, the league, his play, the nature of the majority of his goals and assists this year:



, and also the media furor, this guy definitely comes off as a bit of a somewhat misunderstood hype job. Seems good enough to be a starting CAM in a very well built CL or league winning contender but the range of what he does is much less extraordinary and more narrow in scope IMO than what I had been given the impression of.

Will he be staying or leaving?

I think Alonso staying is related to key players staying, so at least another year in Neverlusen.

Hans was right