'Will win the Ballon d'Or': Florian Wirtz's talent is undeniable | OneFootball

Florian Wirtz to 'win the Ballon d'Or'

Wirtz is a natural Ballon d'Or contender and will, without doubt, put his name in the bracket for 'best in the world' conversations. But that's been obvious to some for a while now.

Former Bayer Leverkusen boss Peter Bosz, who brought Wirtz into the first-team fold, says he knew from day one that the player was as world-beater.

“At 16 he didn’t lose the ball once,” Bosz told Polish magazine Asystent Trenera, as relayed by the Telegraph. “I watched him and I couldn’t believe it. What was this? Every difficult pass, he got out of it with one touch. Wow.

"Mark my words, he will be the best player in the world one day. He will win the Ballon d’Or.”

It's a stance that shouldn't surprise as everything Wirtz has done since then supports the notion. He's very much in that bracket of 'elite' and no one can really deny it.

For one, he's already been the main-man in a title-winning team. A team that won the Bundesliga title against all odds, in fact, as Leverkusen won their first-ever in 2024.

But he's also just someone who delivers consistently at a level few can match. Wirtz is one of the world's most creative players and he does it in various ways.

It was clear when he found five goals and six assists as a 17-year-old in the Bundesliga. It was even more clear when he took those numbers to seven goals and 10 assists while still a teenager.

He can find you goals from passes, he can find them from dribbles and he can just provide them himself. You might have seen the stat doing the rounds that the only players across the top five European leagues to have 10 goals and 10 assists in each of the last two season are Wirtz and Mo Salah.

Well, having both of them is special but the key thing is that Wirtz is still only 22. He's 10 years younger than Salah and already putting his name up there with him.