What’s holding Florian Wirtz back at Liverpool? Germany just gave the answer | OneFootball

For all his struggles at Liverpool this season, Florian Wirtz remains an extraordinarily gifted footballer.

Signed from Bayer Leverkusen for £100million last summer, Wirtz has rarely looked worthy of his price tag at Anfield.

Liverpool’s collective struggles are a factor, with Arne Slot rarely finding the right balance, but the playmaker has been invisible in too many matches for the Reds.

Perhaps the over-coached nature of Premier League football neuters talents like Wirtz, shackled to rigid systems and not entrusted to act on instinct.

For every Eden Hazard, there’s an Angel Di Maria. Wirtz has leaned far closer to the latter than the former this season.

His performance for Germany in their 4-3 win over Switzerland suggests there is some credence to that theory.

Wirtz sparkled in this Bern friendly, scoring twice and providing two assists as Juilen Nagelsman’s team won a see-saw battle between two World Cup participants.

He is given more positional freedom at international level, while the slightly lower tempo compared to the Premier League benefits a player of such technical refinement.

And Wirtz’s first goal was arguably the best of the 22-year-old’s young career to date.

Serge Gnabry rolled a short corner into Wirtz’s feet, with nobody in the massed Swiss defence having the foresight to anticipate the danger.

Two defenders belatedly began closing down their opponent, giving Wirtz a split second to decide on his course of action.

Having been interrupted from mentally compiling his post-match shopping list, he decided to take a touch and whip an unstoppable effort into the upper far-right corner of Gregor Kobel’s goal.

The ball’s trajectory was inevitable as death and gravity combined. Wirtz acted nonchalantly in celebration, but this was no ordinary goal.

In his interview afterwards, the match-winner was asked to self-assess whether this was his best game for Germany.

“Probably yes,” Wirtz said. “With this many goal involvements, yes.

“In the first goal, I’d be lying if I said I meant it to go exactly there, but I’ll take it. In the second goal, you can see that’s exactly where I wanted the ball to go.”

There’s a degree of false modesty in Wirtz’s assessment of his first goal. It certainly didn’t look unintentional, or perhaps he possesses a level of talent to make it appear so. Both theories are an indicator of his ability.

Liverpool fans will be rubbing their eyes in semi-disbelief. Many have seen flashes of Wirtz’s quality in the Premier League, although this usually amounts to an odd flick rather than a compelling 90-minute performance.

This is still a youngster settling in a foreign country, a process that is rarely quick at any age.

Asked in an interview in January what he has learnt since moving to Anfield, Wirtz replied: “What I learned most was that you shouldn’t doubt yourself.

“But you have to believe in yourself and think about your strengths and just have a positive mindset that everything will be fine in the end and that you can rely on yourself.

“The biggest thing I had to work on was my overall fitness level in terms of physicality and the amount of running on the pitch, simply getting the intensity for 90 minutes on the pitch.”

It’s almost impossible to thrive in the Premier League in 2026 without the build of a middleweight boxer, but Wirtz needs to match this physicality to allow his talent to take centre stage.

If he meets these physical demands or Liverpool find a way to harness his talent tactically? Then the Premier League may yet see the player Germany already does.