Liverpool agree to Florian Wirtz transfer fee: How Bayer Leverkusen developed a prospect into a superstar

Florian Wirtz knows what it is to be a wanted man. And now, six years after catching the eye of some of the game's biggest clubs, Wirtz is making the second high profile, contentious move of his career. Liverpool have agreed a deal worth an initial $135 million for Bayer Leverkusen's star player, one which could ultimately break the British transfer record. Manchester City and Bayern Munich might have wanted him but they were soon forced to back out as the English champions snared the brightest diamond on the market.

For many young footballers a summer where three of Europe's leading clubs (briefly) fought it out for his services might be enough to have their head spinning. It is hard to believe the same will happen to Wirtz.

Born in Pulheim, Wirtz grew up in one of Europe's great footballing hotbeds. To the north, the big beasts of Borussia Dortmund, Schalke, Borussia Monchengladbach and Fortuna Dusseldorf. To the east, Bayer Leverkusen. None of them were unaware of the burgeoning talent in the suburbs of Cologne. They would have to wait their turn.

Wirtz had grown up in a family that refused to compromise his development, nor that of his sister Juliane, who plays for Werder Bremen. His father Hans remains the chairman of Grun-Weiss Brauweiler, Wirtz's childhood was framed around the local football team. He grew up with a ball attached to his feet.

Little wonder then that his coaches found it so easy with him. Benedikt Hammans, Wirtz's youth coach in Cologne for several years, said of his young charge: "Florian knew better than me early on which decisions he should make in the game." Breaking into the side at 15, Wirtz was one of the stars in the Cologne Under-17 side that won the National Championships in 2019.

In 14 games alongside players older, bigger and perhaps stronger than him, Wirtz delivered four goals and eight assists, his remarkable form culminating in the evisceration of Bayern Munich in the semifinal second leg of the B-Junioren-Meisterschaft. Even at a tender age you could see signs of the Wirtz Liverpool are willing to break the British transfer record to acquire. Blocking a long pass, the Cologne No.10 immediately finds himself in a pocket of space to receive the ball from his team mate. Two touches to get the ball out of his feet and he is immediately spraying the ball 50 yards behind the Bayern backline, delivering a pass that asks so little of Jan Thielmann, who rounds the keeper and scores. Three minutes later he was hovering on the peripheries of a counter-attack, ready to slot home his side's fourth. That tendency to make a real impact on the scoresheet would stay with Wirtz.

Florian Wirtz transfer: Liverpool agree to $135 million deal plus add-ons for Bayer Leverkusen superstar

Already, his talents were catching the eye of European giants including Juventus and Arsenal. Liverpool too were keeping a close eye on his development. Closer to home, Simon Rolfes was determined to steal a march on those big names from abroad. Returning to Bayer Leverkusen, where he had spent the bulk of his playing career, in 2018, the now-sporting director began his tenure with a simple question for the academy staff he was now leading. From his technique to tenacity, Wirtz had all the qualities Rolfes wanted to see at the Bay Arena. So, he asked, why was Wirtz not already a Leverkusen player?

There was a straightforward reason for that. Cologne, Leverkusen and Borussia Monchengladbach had long since agreed not to poach academy talent off each other, reasoning that it was better both for the region and the players if they were afforded some stability in terms of developments. Leverkusen's solution in the early weeks of 2020 was elegant yet contentious. A few months after leading Cologne to the youth title, Wirtz was signed by Leverkusen... as a first team player.

The European giants that wanted him didn't have much of a chance. It wasn't just that he'd be playing for the same club as his sister. Join Leverkusen and Wirtz could finish his school studies, his parents reasoned, though the youngster would later insist that he had had the casting vote. Five years later it is Wirtz who has the casting vote, but his parents remain some of the most important voices in the room. When suitors came to make their pitches this summer they would have gone directly to Hans, whose wife Karin was also involved in talks with Manchester City.

"The sporting perspective is much more important than money," Wirtz told Sports Illustrated last month when discussing what his mother and father had taught him. "My parents would be angry if I ever gave money priority."

In those early years of his career it might even have been the case that the sporting perspective was trumped by the educational. A few months after the move Wirtz found himself left out of the squad to take on Slavia Prague in the Europa League. Fair enough, he had an exam the next morning. Like any teenager, Wirtz was more entranced by football than his studies, but he never checked out of school early, even bringing a teacher with him when he was first called up to the German national side in March 2021.

Wirtz's star role at Leverkusen

That the move 11 miles to east came within a clear pathway to the first team was another very welcome bonus. It didn't take long for it to emerge. In the summer of 2020 Chelsea agreed a deal worth $96 million to sign Kai Havertz, opening up the number 10 position in the side. Leverkusen needed a successor for their superstar attacker and they didn't intend to spend a penny on him. "We could buy [a replacement], a waste of money, the kid is already better," Rolfes told CBS Sports the following year. "At the end we didn't have a chance to act in a different way. It would have been senseless."

With scarcely a dissenting voice across the club, Leverkusen passed the keys to a teen. Not that he would see a team operating in those terms. "I try not to focus on this idea that I am any sort of special player that makes the difference in a game," Wirtz told CBS Sports in 2023. "I just want to create opportunities to score, make goals happen. I don't really care who gets the goals, it's really about winning the games and I just want to create dangerous chances for us."

Those chances came with remarkable regularity. During the last four seasons across Europe's top five leagues, Wirtz averaged 0.46 assists per 90, a mark bettered only by Kevin De Bruyne, Thomas Muller, Ousmane Dembele and Lionel Messi. By almost any creative metric you care to assess him by, Wirtz found himself among the very best in the world before his 22nd birthday.

That was not a period of relentless development either, for 10 months the young playmaker sat on the sidelines with the anterior cruciate ligament injury that robbed him of the chance to go to the 2022 World Cup. It could have been enough to slow any player's development, an 18-year-old whose body is still growing forced to adapt to one of the sport's most traumatic injuries. Not only did he have to deal with the emotional setback of missing what would have been his first major tournament, he also had to watch on as Leverkusen fell apart without him, though the replacement of Gerardo Seaone with Xabi Alonso offered intriguing promise for the future.

Those who know Wirtz well say he hates being injured even more than most. He used his time productively, determined to round out the aspects of his game that had not quite popped in his first Bundesliga season. Only four months after his comeback he was pronouncing himself a better footballer than the one who had suffered the injury. By his first full season back, the 2023-24 campaign beyond the wildest dreams of anyone at Bayer Leverkusen, his shot and goal output in particular began to swing upwards dramatically.

With Wirtz reigning supreme, Neverkusen became the most remarkable story in sports. A stunning unbeaten domestic season, the Bundesliga crown wrestled away from a Bayern Munich side that had seemed bound to reign over German football eternally when they added Harry Kane that summer. With his penchant for big goals and the dizzying combination of elegance and relentless workrate, Wirtz was obviously the best player in Germany.

How does he fit into Liverpool?

The same might well have been true in 2024-25, though the dramatic last gasp winners for Leverkusen dried up and the injuries that they had avoided the previous season bit back, Wirtz himself falling to an ankle injury that ended Bundesliga and Champions League campaigns that had already looked terminal. Even as the demands on him grew greater, Alonso's system notably more cautious than it had been in the title season, Wirtz delivered the same 20 goal contributions in the league, taking more shots and providing more assists.

No wonder the best and brightest wanted him. If there was any surprise it was that only Bayern Munich and Manchester City joined Liverpool in the race. Joachim Low spoke for many when he told Bild this week that he had expected Wirtz to follow Alonso to Real Madrid, but seemingly the English champions find themselves in a one horse race. That should afford them the opportunity to negotiate down the $170 million price tag that CBS Sports revealed earlier this week was being stuck to by Leverkusen. Whatever the eventual terms it is likely to break the British transfer record, $144.6 million, set when Chelsea signed Enzo Fernandez in January 2023.

For that price they look to be getting a player who is likely to be the most talented on the market, one whose acquisition opens up enormous possibilities for Arne Slot. The most obvious would simply be to plug and play Wirtz in the number 10 role occupied by Dominik Szoboszlai last season. The new signing certainly offers more goal output; Liverpool would effectively be swapping out a six goals and assists in league play attacker for one who can realistically deliver double figures in both. Wirtz might be lighter and shorter than but he is a tyro in the press. In the title-winning season no-one across the entire Bundesliga won back possession in the attacking third more than Leverkusen's No.10.

That would surely work but there are more options informed by the business Michael Edwards has been doing elsewhere. The acquisition of (Wirtz's once and likely future team mate) Jeremie Frimpong with Milos Kerkez to follow affords Slot a new wing back on each flank. Last season saw Liverpool deploy their fullbacks in notably more conservative positions than they had under Jurgen Klopp, that must surely change if they are acquiring someone like Frimpong, who spent almost as much time moonlighting as a center forward under Alonso as he did in a back four. Kerkez too is well suited to bombing on.

Does that necessitate a more cautious midfield behind Wirtz, perhaps even an anchoring presence and a shift in shape to a 4-3-3? There is no reason why that might not suit him either, given he has been drifting further into wide areas over recent seasons. One of the great joys of Leverkusen's football in recent years has been the interplay of Alejandro Grimaldo and Wirtz, the left wing back freed to go infield and out, attacking the box or coming short for one-twos. Could the same happen with Kerkez? Bournemouth have generally looked to exploit the running power of their Hungary international rather than his technical abilities and he profiles more like a younger Andrew Robertson, an up and down presence on the left flank whose greatest skills are getting to the byline.

If that is how Liverpool choose to deploy their left back that should be no problem for Wirtz either. Indeed it is easy to see how their recruitment might mesh together with a view to getting their wide attackers into more central positions. Having pushed wider to the right in recent years to fit around Trent Alexander-Arnold, Mohamed Salah could move infield with Frimpong on his outside. Slot could ask the same of Wirtz too.

For nine figures Liverpool are getting themselves options but more than that, they are acquiring the reference point for their future attack. Since that summer's day in 2022 when Salah signed the contract before his current one one of the most significant questions hanging over Anfield has been what happens when the Egyptian King reaches the end of his imperial phase. That has been answered. The crown passes to Wirtz, who found in his early 20s that the regalia fits him well.

If the path of his career so far is anything to go on, a high profile move and the task of succeeding a club great should only bring the best out of Wirtz.