Florian Wirtz on messages from two players that helped convince him to move to Liverpool and how he handled those early struggles at Anfield

15:46, 30 Jan 2026Updated 15:47, 30 Jan 2026

Liverpool star Florian Wirtz speaks on the BBC’s ‘The Football Interview’, January 2026

Florian Wirtz has opened up on how messages from Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah helped him choose Liverpool over Bayern Munich in the summer.

The Reds were one of three clubs heavily pursuing the Germany international, with Manchester City also interested before opting to drop out of the race in May, reportedly due to the finances involved.

Liverpool eventually stayed the course, beating Bundesliga champions Bayern to secure Wirtz’s signature, landing the playmaker from Bayer Leverkusen in a deal worth up to £116m.

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And in a chat with the BBC, Wirtz has now revealed how contact from Salah and Reds captain Van Dijk helped tip the scales in favour of the Premier League champions.

“My step to Leverkusen was the most important thing I did,” Wirtz says. “The time was incredible and I couldn’t even think about this before, I was just thinking maybe I can be a Bundesliga player or something before I joined them.

“I met so many great people, good players, great coaches. I broke some records but to be the champion was the best thing, first time in the history of their club, unbeaten. It was the biggest achievement.

“I thought [Liverpool] is the right place to get to be a better and bigger player because the club is so big. And yes, the team won the Premier League last year.

“I had some good meetings with the manager (Arne Slot) before I joined and also a few players contacted me, for example Virgil and Mo as well, who sent me a message and they were not begging me to come but just tried to give me a feeling about Liverpool.

“Virgil said he would be happy if I came and I would help them make a step to be even better than they were last year and these are things you like to hear and it maybe helped you to make the decision in the end.

“And I am happy that I made this decision, even when the start wasn’t that easy, I am still so happy I decided.”

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Wirtz, who has scored five goals in a little over a month for the Reds, has generally been much improved since the end of November, playing his part in a side that have lost just one of their last 15 games.

The German initially struggled to justify the hype that came with his move to the Premier League and he opened up on how tough it was to deal with the expectations after his, at the time, club-record switch from Leverkusen.

Wirtz added: “Of course I was very excited when I came and I wanted it to be an instant success, but it didn’t come like this and I just had to stay strong in my mind, keep believing in myself that at some point it has to click.

“And I was telling myself: ‘You did so good in Germany, you can’t just forget how to play football like this here’. Because it is not completely different football.

“It was not easy to have the confidence on the pitch but I think I dealt with it well and my people around me helped me. I am not a person who likes to talk a lot about these things but my family, my friends, all of them, believed in me.”