Only Angela Merkel has stood in the way of Xabi Alonso’s meticulous plan to place Florian Wirtz in the top hierarchy of German football. The lack of public investment in infrastructure that Germany has suffered for a decade caused unexpected works on the A-1 highway. The main road between Cologne and Leverkusen was clogged for hours, and in the middle of the congestion the playmaker was blocked when on January 10 he was on his way to the Bay Arena hotel to concentrate on the day of the match with Dortmund. His teammates and his coach waited in vain for him while he remained locked in his Mercedes.
“I was trapped,” he lamented. “Without being able to do anything. I couldn’t go in any direction. I couldn’t get off the highway. “It was very bitter.”
Alonso began the tactical talk without him and when the footballer finally appeared and alleged compelling reasons to justify the delay, the coach was impassive. He crossed him off the list of starters for a disciplinary offense. The Dortmund game was the third game that Wirtz started on the bench this season in the Bundesliga. The best must lead by example in the Leverkusen regime, and Wirtz is the one who enjoys the most privileges when it comes to applying pressure, so lateness became a cause for a moral lesson. Even though Granit Xhaka protested in his defense. “What can he do if there is so much traffic between Rhineland and Westphalia?” the captain asked himself.
When Wirtz entered the field in the second half, Leverkusen led 3-1. As against Bayern in the Bundesliga, and as against Liverpool, Milan and Inter, the team’s most special player did not score a goal or an assist. His 14 goals and nine assists in the 28 games he played this season have been important but not absolutely decisive in the trajectory of a team that has based its competitiveness on the stability provided by its center backs led by Tah and its attack led by Xhaka. . Wirtz has shone on these pillars in a team that has been able to maintain its ambition after winning the Bundesliga last year. Now Bayer occupies second place in the German championship, four points behind Bayern Munich and advances in the Champions League with the enthusiasm of rookies.
Alonso has known how to encourage his players to rise even after the adrenaline rush that came with winning a unique title in the club’s history. “The players provide feedback to each other,” says the coach; “That means that the team flows with internal energy. I don’t have to be behind them every day. Now, in the process of being competitive in the Champions League, we had to adapt and know how to be dominant and, above all, know how to behave when we are dominated. Knowing how to go through moments of difficulty means building a mentality. That feeling of knowing how to go through Anfield or the Metropolitano is the next step.”
At 21 years old, Wirtz is Bayer’s star and at the same time the synthesis of what an immature team represents. Since Alonso signed for the aspirin manufacturer’s club two years ago, he has become more than just a playmaker with sporadic appearances and last passes. His movement in the field has continued until he crosses the threshold that brings him closer to the long-distance runners’ terrain. He will never be a marathon runner, and sometimes he loses his distinctive seal of lucidity after prolonged efforts, but with the Spaniard he has learned to make decisions that help him give continuity to his interventions without ever disconnecting from the game. Whether the ball is in the possession of the centre-backs or when it is carried by artist who appears to define.
“Having that ambition, that category, that ability to run non-stop, score goals and provide assists every day, in every game, is Florian’s greatest asset,” says Xhaka, the team’s first moral authority and the German’s great pitcher towards the goals. attacks.
“In England there will be more talk about Salah, here in Spain there will be more talk about others, and we talk a lot about Florian,” Alonso said. “He is a very special footballer, very important in our game. To help you be decisive the entire team has to function well. Aleix García, Grimaldo, Xhaka… Only with continuity will he achieve Flo improve. He is a player with a present that is already there and a great future ahead. But for him to develop we have to evolve as a team. Our goal is to be in the top eight in the Champions League, and then in the Bundesliga and the German Cup to be successful as well. That is the biggest motivation for Flo and for everyone. When they feel that we are close to the objectives, the team takes another step. We feel like we want to take another step.”
“Metropolitan moments”
“We will have to know the moments that the game will have,” observed the coach about tonight’s duel with Atlético; “They have players who know how to give rhythm, control and passing players, very good in associations and transitions. The more we understand the emotional moment of the game, the better we will compete. At the Metropolitano it is vital to know how to cope with those difficult moments when the public pulls away from Atlético.”
The moments of difficulty that Alonso points out, when Leverkusen lock themselves behind and their players are forced to extend their efforts from field to field, are the ones that Wirtz has managed the worst. “The magician”, as Lothar Matthäus calls him, loses magic if his legs wear out in the comings and goings of ownerless matches, when Leverkusen fails to keep rivals at bay with man pressure. Alonso has dedicated much of his work to building a containment ecosystem. The teammates, as Exequiel Palacios says, are convinced to press so that when the midfielder receives the ball he thinks clearly, plays easily and quickly: “I try to do the dirty work and run for it.”
Alonso smiled every time he was asked about his future as Ancelotti’s successor in Madrid. “It neither bothers me nor surprises me that they ask me, nor have I prepared an answer,” he replied. “I already have enough to prepare for this match against this Atlético, who I think has the best squad in ten years.”
There is no more exhausting test for a creative footballer than going through the hoops of the Metropolitano. Tonight we will know if Florian Wirtz is a total footballer or if he is still missing a boil.
