Florian Wirtz played an almost perfect game in the jersey of the German national team in the win against Switzerland and left colleagues, the national coach and opponents in raptures. As a “side tenner” he also refutes critics in England.
“He understands the game completely differently than the others.” This sentence doesn’t necessarily have to be a compliment, it could also be the opposite. But in this case it was a compliment, it was the highlight of the song of praise.
The sentence came from the mouth of Granit Xhaka, who is known for understanding a game better than many others. The captain of the Swiss team raved about Florian Wirtz, his former colleague at Bayer Leverkusen. He spent two years there “had the honor of sharing the cabin with him.”
Simply world class
On Friday evening in Basel, Xhaka had the honor of seeing the best of Florian Wirtz’s 38 international matches, and above all, in the German national team’s 4:3 (2:2) win, he saw a Wirtz who was Wirtz again: technically brilliant, fast, assertive, quick in his comprehension, precise in his execution – simply world class.
Wirtz also found that: “I’ve never had four scorers before. That’s why it’s easy to answer whether it was my best international game.”
Two assists in the first half, two shots in the corner in the second. “You have to be really happy about the kind of player you have there”said Xhaka at the microphone at the sports show, and the coach of the German national team was also happy.
Nagelsmann: “Will be at the top for a long time”
“It was an extraordinary game from him, with extraordinary goals”said Julian Nagelsmann, who immediately predicted the future of the 22-year-old Wirtz: “He’s going to be at the very, very top for a long time.”
Precisely because hardly anyone will contradict that, the national coach was also asked about the discrepancy that exists between Wirtz’s performance in the first test match of the World Cup year against Switzerland and his performance in the Liverpool FC jersey in the Premier League. “It’s part of personal development that it doesn’t always go in one direction”said Nagelsmann.
Florian Wirtz spoke to him about his problems with the English champions and explained himself “very open”. The two would have “found themselves closer to each other during the phase”, And that’s probably what Wirtz’s first half of the year in England was, in which he started weakly, then caught himself and then got injured.
Problem of “intensity”
Nagelsmann did not want to specify what the problems were. Wirtz replied briefly that him “the intensity” problems getting used to the Premier League. Some experts in the British media and fans of Liverpool FC attribute the mediocre performances to the fact that club coach Arne Slot was using his horribly expensive new signing incorrectly, namely on the left side and not in the center of midfield in the “ten-man” position.
But in Nagelsmann’s 4-2-3-1 system, Wirtz also played on the left side of midfield, and from there he dictated the German game. A “side tens” the national coach called the role.
Space creates space
He had his share of great performances because he instructed left-back David Raum to move into the center more often in order to create more space on the wing for Wirtz, who could only rarely be stopped by two opponents, let alone one.
Then another former Bayer Leverkusen teammate also started raving about it. “It couldn’t be better. He played an incredible game”said Jonathan Tah. It wasn’t just the goals and assists, but also “with what ease he played”.
The following points in the list indirectly addressed the discrepancy that existed between this one game in the national jersey and the games for Liverpool FC: “The way he went into the duels, the intensity with which he played.”
Two top games with Liverpool FC
After the international matches there will be two games with the club in which it will be difficult to repeat Basel’s almost perfect performance. Liverpool FC, who have long since had to give up successfully defending their title, will first face Manchester City in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup.
In the quarter-finals of the Champions League, defending champions Paris Saint-Germain will face defending champions Paris Saint-Germain in the first leg of the quarter-finals a few days later.
