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Jurgen Klopp's role in Liverpool's Florian Wirtz transfer as Bayern left fuming
Florian Wirtz is poised to complete his move to Liverpool in the coming days, with the Reds proving a more attractive proposition than Bayern Munich for Germany's best player
It got a little lost amongst everything else that was going on with Liverpool at the back end of the season just gone, but Amazon Prime's 'Doubters to Believers' documentary was a useful modern history lesson.
It didn't end up what it set out to be, of course, with the aim surely to chronicle Jurgen Klopp's glorious, trophy-laden finale to his time at Liverpool, but what we did get was a tale of how a man and a football club found each other at a perfect time.
Klopp strides into an Anfield in disrepair in October 2015 and immediately decides he doesn't like the dressing rooms. By the time he leaves eight-and-a-half years later those dressing rooms are transformed, as is half of the stadium.
Last week Liverpool released ticketing data that showed how every one of Anfield's 61,276 seats are sold for every league game, with around 16,000 more fans able to attend matches these days compared to a decade ago.
Such is the demand for tickets these days they could double the size of Anfield and it still wouldn't be enough, and it is largely thanks to Klopp that the Reds finally seem at peace with their place in the order of things. Liverpool are now acting like a big club.
Florian Wirtz was a 12-year-old on the books at Cologne in 2015, desperate to make his way in the game and achieve all the things that a young German footballer dreams of. And if you are a young German footballer with a dream then there is usually only one place you are dreaming of.
Bayern Munich are said to be furious at having missed out on the transfer of Wirtz, who is widely expected to complete his switch to Anfield in the coming days for a British record fee of around £118million, an exorbitant amount but one that Liverpool are in a healthy position to pay.
The idea that the Bundesliga's best player of the last two seasons isn't ending up at Bayern is cause for introspection at Germany's perennial champions, who only missed out on the title once in the last 13 seasons, and that to a Wirtz-powered Bayer Leverkusen in 2023-24. Prior to that they were last denied by Klopp's Dortmund in 2011 and 2012.
Reports from Germany claim there is disbelief at Bayern over how they've let Wirtz slip through their fingers, especially when they offered him a financial package more than Liverpool's. But the player himself made his mind up some time ago, with Arne Slot's tactical plan for him key.
And Slot himself has said, the spectacular sights created when Liverpool won the Premier League and paraded the trophy through the streets might just help convince players that they want a piece of this action, and Wirtz sees Anfield as the place to be as he makes his way in the game.
It is all a far cry from 10 years ago when the Reds would struggle to convince the top English talents to join them, never mind the best player in Germany. Klopp deserves immense credit for that, as Slot and his team reap the rewards.
