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Playmaker Florian Wirtz

Photo: Alexander Hassenstein / Getty Images

National soccer player Florian Wirtz will probably remain loyal to Bundesliga leaders Bayer Leverkusen for a while, despite increasing interest from major international clubs.

»Florian has a contract in Leverkusen until 2027.

That will also roughly be the amount of time he will spend in Leverkusen," his father and advisor Hans Wirtz told the "Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger" on Friday: "There is no answer to what will happen and when.

We should wait for the next two years and then we'll see where the path leads."

An important point for the planned stay is apparently the coach, who is being heavily courted.

“Florian is very lucky with Xabi Alonso, who has a lot of qualities,” said his father: “He treats the entire team brilliantly.

“This is the right coach at the right time.”

Alonso praises the “intelligent and stable” family

Alonso replied on Friday afternoon that Wirtz was currently finding “the right team and the right club for him.”

He was pleased by his father's promise.

»I am pleased that his father and his family are supporting Flo on the right path.

These are intelligent and stable people.

They are very calm about Flo’s future and have a very positive influence on him.”

The father sees his 20-year-old son still in the middle of development.

"It will take some time until he is in a position where he can consistently deliver these performances," said father Wirtz: "Only then can we talk about superlatives and higher qualifications." Apparently FC Bayern Munich as well as Real Madrid and FC are showing Barcelona interested in the offensive player.

However, he criticized the substitution in the international match against Belgium in March 2023 after just half an hour - of all places at home in Cologne.

“I couldn’t understand the substitution, especially in this place at this time,” said Hans Wirtz: “I wouldn’t have done it as a national coach.

But Hansi Flick had a different opinion.

It was a long time ago, things have changed for the better since then. Wirtz plays regularly under Flick's successor Julian Nagelsmann.

cev/dpa