Florian Wirtz has struggled to make the impact at Liverpool that he was expected to and it has now been revealed that he would have preferred to join Real Madrid.
Just last week, Liverpool were told to send Wirtz on loan to Madrid, and while that will obviously never happen, he might have picked the Bernabeu over Anfield if given the chance.
Despite Xabi Alonso, former Bayer Leverkusen coach, joining Madrid in the summer, his request to sign Wirtz was not supported, and the German ultimately made the £100m move to Anfield.
Since then, Wirtz has only made three assists and is yet to score his first goal for the Reds.
Now, Bayer Leverkusen CEO Fernando Carro has revealed that Liverpool weren’t actually the first choice for Wirtz.
Florian Wirtz first choice was Real Madrid – not Liverpool
Speaking to German outlet Sport1, Fernando Carro has spoken about Wirtz and his struggles adapting to the Premier League.
“The Wirtz family and Florian knew that extending their contracts was our top priority,” Carro said.
“He’s someone who wants to win the Champions League. We thought that with this team we would have been able to go further than we did. He saw that we had won the German championship, but that winning the Champions League with Bayer Leverkusen might be more difficult.
“He would certainly have gone to Madrid if Xabi had made the offer. But Xabi has less say at Madrid than he does with us.
“One of Xabi Alonso’s great strengths was his ability to work with our scouting department to define who needed to be in our team.We were very cautious with salaries during the summer transfers.
“But we would have been prepared to make an exception for Florian, definitely in a range that Bayer Leverkusen has never seen before.
“In the end, Florian decided for himself what he wanted to do. His parents are his advisors, and I think it’s good that they fully respect Florian’s wishes.”
Liverpool might have been second choice but that matters little when they were successful in signing him ahead of the competition.
That said, Wirtz will agree that he neeeds to increase his goal contributions but given that he is not the only player struggling for form, it’s not quite that simple.
