Liverpool contact Florian Wirtz representatives to express interest in Bayern Leverkusen attacker
By
David Ornstein and more
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May 14, 2025Updated 6:12 pm GMT+1
Liverpool have made contact with the representatives of Florian Wirtz to express an interest in signing him if he leaves Bayer Leverkusen and is keen on moving to England.
The 22-year-old attacker is among the most sought-after talents in world football, with Bayern Munich and Manchester City also keen.
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Liverpool’s admiration is long-standing but it is unclear whether Wirtz intends to depart the team or country he is playing in at present.
Should this emerge as a genuine possibility, the Premier League champions would be ready to explore a deal and that is why they are one of the clubs in touch with his camp about the situation.
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Why Florian Wirtz is the world’s best player at finding space between the lines
Not since the rise of Mesut Ozil has European football witnessed a No 10 so intelligent and selfless with his movement as Leverkusen's Wirtz
Wirtz was a key player in Leverkusen’s title run last season, scoring 11 goals and adding 12 assists as Xabi Alonso’s side won a first Bundesliga crown in their history.
He has become one of European football’s most coveted players after that sterling 2023-24 campaign, when he won Bundesliga player of the season as Leverkusen went undefeated domestically and reached the Europa League final, losing to Atalanta.
Wirtz has continued to impress in 2024-25, scoring 10 goals and providing 12 assists in the Bundesliga this season.
The playmaker is contracted through to 2027 with Leverkusen, whose CEO Fernando Carro
said in April the player had a “very high chance” of staying at the club.
Wirtz has played 29 times for Germany and was part of Julian Nagelsmann’s squad at Euro 2024.
Arne Slot’s Liverpool were confirmed as Premier League champions last month in the head coach’s first season in charge since joining last summer.
‘Wirtz is sensational – and there is still some growing to do’
Analysis by German football writer Sebastian Stafford-Bloor
A sensational player. Wirtz has been so good for the past two years, that he’s likely worth whatever Leverkusen are asking for him. €150m? Pay it.
Wirtz is still 21, which seems strange given how long he has been around for and the fact that, club and international football combined, he has played over 200 senior games.
But in the last two years, since recovering from the knee injury that cost him a place at the 2022 World Cup, he has evolved into one of the most destructive playmakers in Europe — a brilliant carrier, who can glide past opponents with unsettling ease, but also a No 10 in a more traditional sense, replete with an array of knifing, penetrative passes.
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But watch him off the ball because that’s where one of his real strengths lies. Wirtz works incredibly hard to find and inhabit space between an opponent’s lines, and — as a result — it is incredibly difficult to stop him receiving passes and (by implication) influencing games.
There is still some growing to do. He is a scorer of fine goals, rather than a truly consistent goalscorer and is prone to missing chances.
And when opponents man-mark him in midfield, as Bayern Munich did in the Champions League last-16 first leg, he can find it difficult to extricate himself from that kind of attention.
Context is important, though, because so much of Leverkusen’s football passes through him. At a club with a stronger squad, where there are multiple playmaking threats, that’s unlikely to be such an effective strategy.
Ultimately, he is the reigning Bundesliga player of the year for good reason. Had he not been injured against Bayern, he would have retained that award, too, and that should describe exactly how rich his form has been.
