Florian Wirtz was the player responsible for the late miss on Saturday night that cost Bayer Leverkusen victory against Bayern Munich and probably ends their chances of overhauling Bayern in this season’s Bundesliga.
Bayern remain eight points clear with 12 games remaining and, while Vincent Kompany’s side are far from convincing against top-level opposition, their quality of attackers and strength in depth means they are relentless at collecting victories against middling Bundesliga teams.
If Wirtz had slotted this chance into the net and the gap had been reduced to just five points, things might be a little more exciting.
But Wirtz was nevertheless the game’s key player in a match in which Leverkusen completely outplayed Bayern.
Leverkusen ‘won’ 15 shots to 2, 2.2 expected goals to 0.1, and six corners to none. They hit the woodwork twice in the first half. But, ultimately, they drew 0-0. “We have mixed feelings,” said Leverkusen manager Xabi Alonso after the game. “We played our best game against Bayern this year, and maybe last year, too. I have to give my team a big compliment.
“We are not so happy with the result, but that’s football.”
As usual, everything revolved around Wirtz. He is a brilliant player in possession, capable of dribbling past opponents, playing clever through-balls, and scoring goals. But he’s also a truly outstanding player in terms of his movement before receiving the ball. He might be the best player in the world at finding space between the lines, away from the opposition midfielders. But how?
Here’s how Bayern set up yesterday, attempting to be aggressive in the opening stages.
In a 4-4-2 shape, Bayern’s forwards shut down the two Leverkusen centre-backs while their central midfielders, Aleksandar Pavlovic and Joshua Kimmich, got tight to their opposite numbers Granit Xhaka and Exequiel Palacios.
The problem, though, was behind them. Wirtz played in his usual No 10 role and continually positioned himself perfectly between the lines. Bayern never truly solved this problem.
Here’s a good example. Again, you can see the two Leverkusen midfielders being closed down, but Wirtz spots the gap between the lines and glances over his shoulder to realise he’s being tracked by a Bayern defender. This is what Wirtz does repeatedly: a sudden sprint towards the ball to find space, not merely receiving possession but dragging an opposition defender out of position.
Here’s another example. This is trademark Wirtz. When he realises Bayern’s two central midfielders are about to jump forward onto Leverkusen’s central midfielders, he makes the same movement.
He runs at the same point, for the same distance, at the same angle, to maintain his position equidistant between the midfield and defensive lines. Note him glancing over his shoulder, checking to see which centre-back is tracking him.
Here, Dayot Upamecano is the one to follow him up the pitch, with Kim Min-jae pinned by Nathan Tella. This is a particularly good situation for Leverkusen as it means Bayern’s right-sided centre-back has to move in front of their left-sided centre-back. It still doesn’t stop Wirtz from receiving the ball in space.
One of the things Wirtz does particularly intelligently is realising where his opponents don’t want to go. In the above clip, he moved deeper because he realised he was being tracked by a centre-back and they don’t want to move too far out of the defensive line.
Here, he realises he is being shadowed by midfielder Kimmich and therefore pushes forward into a position where Kimmich ideally doesn’t want to go.
This is the point when Kimmich realises he can’t follow any more — he points to Upamecano to watch Wirtz and pushes forward into midfield again.
Then, we have that same situation. Kimmich sprints forward and Wirtz matches his run just behind. Upamecano is following, but Wirtz has ensured he remains perfectly between the two. It’s almost like they’re connected by strings — something we usually say about team-mates, not an opponent. But this is Wirtz’s specialism.
And this matters because, when Leverkusen build a move down the left, Wirtz is perfectly free to receive a pass between Kimmich and Upemecano.
After taking the ball past Upemecano, he attempts to squeeze the ball beyond Manuel Neuer and, from the rebound, Jeremie Frimpong heads against the bar.
Wirtz is also good at finding space by moving laterally. Here, when playing a ball into defence, he glances over his shoulder and realises both Bayern central midfielders are towards his side of the pitch. He therefore runs directly towards the open side of the pitch.
The pass comes quickly, in behind Pavlovic and into Wirtz.
Wirtz plays the ball in behind for Frimpong, although he is offside.
Here’s another good situation. Bayern’s midfielders are, as usual, pushing up onto Leverkusen’s midfielders. Wirtz is the third midfielder to worry about, so Kim jumps forward to track him.
Wirtz knows that Kim doesn’t want to move too far out of defence, so does his usual thing of matching the runs of Bayern’s midfielders. Kim follows dangerously high and, meanwhile, Alex Grimaldo moves off the left flank to become the No 10.
Leverkusen end up working the ball into Grimaldo, now all the way over towards the right, and he plays in Frimpong, sprinting inside off the wing.
Frimpong storms in behind, where he is cynically tripped by Hiroki Ito. Leverkusen wanted a red card and, from this freeze frame, it wasn’t a completely unreasonable request — this was fairly close to a clear goalscoring opportunity, with Ito the last man.
Bayern initially seemed to change their pressing approach at the start of the second half, bringing Michael Olise inside from the right to help press high up in the middle, with Kimmich playing a more reserved role and tracking Wirtz more closely.
But sometimes Kimmich still went pressing higher and the same problems emerged.
Here’s Wirtz free between the lines, Upamecano tentatively moving forward but putting his arms out either side, as if asking if he’s really supposed to be in this position.
When Wirtz receives possession, it’s actually left-winger Kingsley Coman who has to shut him down. That allows Leverkusen to play out towards that flank and exploit the space he’s left behind.
In the end, the weak cross probably should have been a slid ball into Wirtz.
And that sort of thing happened throughout the game.
Wirtz is brilliant at finding space for the basic purpose of receiving possession, but he’s also so effective at dragging opponents around for the benefit of his team-mates. Perhaps not since the rise of Mesut Ozil has European football witnessed a No 10 so intelligent and selfless with his movement.
Reports continue to link Bayern with a summer move for Wirtz. In that respect, this was probably the worst-case scenario for Leverkusen — their star man spent 90 minutes demonstrating precisely why Bayern should want him, but he couldn’t provide the decisive finish to give his current side hope of overhauling Bayern this season.
GO DEEPER
Bayern Munich leave Leverkusen deflated as the Bundesliga title race reverts to type
(Top photo: Alex Grimm/Getty Images)
