Florian Wirtz: Germany ace underlines best-in-world potential with France wondergoal

Robin Bairner

• 23 Mar 2024 21:23 GMT
• 4 min read

Bayer Leverkusen attacker Florian Wirtz underlined his incredible potential by scoring Germany’s opening goal in a friendly against France after just seven seconds in Lyon.

He found a pocket of space outside the home penalty box before lashing a shot beyond Brice Samba and into the top corner of the net in a scintillating start to the match.

It was the type of moment that Leverkusen head coach Xabi Alonso has grown used to this season and has sparked a string of transfer rumours linking the 20-year-old with a big summer move.

LEARN MORE: Florian Wirtz stats

Liverpool and Chelsea have both taken an interest in Wirtz, while FootballTransfers revealed last summer that Manchester City were also monitoring the player.

But just how good can he become? The best in the world, according to data analytics experts SciSports.

READ MORE: Latest Chelsea transfer rumours

What position does Wirtz play and what is his ceiling?

Wirtz is primarily a right-footed central attacker, but he is also capable of playing out on the left as an inverted winger.

He posts 11 goals and an incredible 17 assists in 36 appearances across all competitions, having a hand in a goal on average once every 96 minutes he’s on the field.

This is a remarkable production rate for such a young player, and especially when it is considered that he missed a large part of 2022 after sustaining a serious knee injury. His recovery from that issue took time, but he’s now fully back.

Wirtz is so good that data analytic experts SciSports rate him as having a ceiling that could make him one of the best players in the world.

Using an algorithm that gives players a SciSkill potential based on in-game data points, Wirtz is given a ceiling of 152.4 – higher than Erling Haaland, who is presently the best individual in world football, according to the analytics company, with a score of 139.4.

Among the 10 players whose potential is judged the highest in the world, Wirtz’s ceiling is rising at the highest rate, indicating that he is outstripping previous predictions.

That can only be a positive sign for Wirtz, and promises a transfer war between the likes of Chelsea, Liverpool and Man City as they seek to land one of the biggest talents in the game.