“Kicker” award forgiven
Wirtz is a footballer of the year – Flick goes out empty
Updated on 10.08.2025 – 12:18 p.m.Reading time: 3 min.
The “kicker” awarded its annual awards. There was a special feature among the women.
Shortly after moving as the most expensive German professional from Bayer Leverkusen for FC Liverpool, Florian Wirtz was voted Germany’s footballer of the year. The national player, who moved to England for a total volume of up to 150 million euros, prevailed in the “Kicker” election in front of Bayern star Michael Olise and Nick Woltemade from VfB Stuttgart.
Julian Schuster was awarded the coach of the year. At SC Freiburg, he succeeded coaches Christian Streich and already qualified for the Europa League with the Breisgauer in his first season. There was a novelty in the election as a footballer of the year: With DFB captain Giulia Gwinn and national goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger, two players with the identical number of votes landed at the forefront for the first time. The 34-year-old Berger from Gotham FC was also recognized as the best final woman in the US NWSL.
Wirtz collected 24 scorer points for Bayer Leverkusen in the past season as the best player player for a whole season. The 22-year-old is hard to imagine in the national team. For months, the German record champion from Munich tried to the technically experienced offensive artist. But in the end he decided to switch to the Premier League.
“The personal honor of individual actors is always and above all an award of the collective in football,” said Wirtz. “I am aware that there is still a lot of work ahead of me to do justice to all the expectations that are also connected to the footballer of the year.”
Freiburg’s Schuster managed to close the gap left by Streich. “Individual awards are always the reflection of a team performance in football. In Freiburg, this is particularly true,” said the 40-year-old. “Here, maybe more than elsewhere, it only works together: coaching team, staff and players worked out of the first day.”
For Ann-Katrin Berger, it is already the second honor of the footballer of the year after 2024, when she contributed decisively to the DFB women at Olympics. According to her more than unfortunate European Championship in Switzerland, Gwinn can look forward to the award for the first time. The new captain of the national team had seriously injured her knee in the opening game against Poland.