Dhe man of the day said nothing. He didn’t have to, because his performance and especially his record spoke for themselves. So the young man, who passed the matriculation exam at high school and has long since passed his matriculation exam par excellence on the soccer field, quietly enjoyed his most recent best performance. Florian Wirtz, the boy prodigy in Bayer 04 Leverkusen’s professional football training center, has been the shooting star among all Bundesliga players since Saturday who have already exceeded first-class requirements at the age of 18.
He erased a goal record set by Cologne soccer icon Lukas Podolski in 2004. The former national player scored his tenth Bundesliga goal in 2004, when little Florian was just one year old, at the age of 18 years and 353 days in a 1. FC Köln shirt. Wirtz, who switched from “Effzeh” to neighboring Leverkusen in January 2020 because of the better prospects, scored the goal for the 1-0 win over Mainz 05 on Saturday (62nd minute).
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