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"They have instilled in him the belief that money is not the most important factor in a football career.

"He is very family-oriented and he has the sort of football arrogance that you want to see from a player on the pitch but off it he is very grounded with family values and with Xabi Alonso guiding him with his parents, he wanted to make sure he ticked all the boxes as a person as well as a player."

So when interest from Bundesliga behemoth Bayern Munich became clear alongside Premier League rivals Manchester City and champions Liverpool, some thinking time was needed for the Wirtz family as they sat down to plot what would come next for the Bundesliga player of the year.



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An end-of-season holiday in Corsica made for some picturesque updates for the Instagram account, but behind the scenes, talks remained ongoing in the inner circle establish just what he should do next.

At the time of writing, a bid of £109m has been tabled and rejected by sporting director Simon Rolfes and managing director Fernando Carro but there remains a determination to reach an accord.

What is perhaps somewhat refreshing in the modern game is how the champions of England have been able to nudge themselves to the front of the queue for Wirtz without promising a king's ransom on the bottom line of their contract offer.

Liverpool, while hardly paupers in the modern game, will not have been able to offer the sort of wages that will have blown City or Bayern out the water and there is a feeling that the green light to pass to the negotiating table with Leverkusen has been earned through an exciting football-based pitch of where Wirtz will fit in at Anfield.

"When I moved from Cologne to Leverkusen, I didn't think for a single second about my salary, but only about what was best for my career," Wirtz revealed in May.

"We shared so many unforgettable memories that will always stay in my heart and my head," he posted on his social media accounts.

If anyone is best positioned to offer career advice outside of Wirtz's parents, however, the Leverkusen star is fortunate enough to be able to tap into the wealth of Alonso's knowledge, who starred for both Liverpool and Bayern during one of the most decorated playing careers of the 21st century.

"He is world-class," Alonso said in his outgoing press conference at the BayArena.

It's normal in football that there are rumours, especially with such a special player."

How much of a march Liverpool were able to steal on Bayern through the German champions' complacency is unknown but reports in Leverkusen media that the Wirtz family were 'greatly irritated' by misplaced Munich confidence surely did not help their own pitch.

"Bayern will be gutted to have lost out on a player as good as Florian Wirtz," adds FFT's McCambridge, who also works for the Bundesliga itself.

They expect the best young players in Germany to want to play for them and that might have led to some hubris there that Florian Wirtz would want to join them.

"But Florian is also very smart, so he will have sat down with his parents when they were weighing up the move, saw the presence of Jamal Musiala and maybe realised there is a greater need for him at Liverpool.

He will have seen that Liverpool are maybe lacking a more traditional No.10.

"Bayern just hoover up the best young talent in Germany and probably just assumed they were going to do the same for Wirtz but after sitting down with his parents, he obviously feels a move to the Premier League champions is for him.
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