JB SOCCER

By all accounts, Florian Wirtz is not just a player for the future—he's a player for right now. If Liverpool were to sign him, they wouldn’t just be acquiring one of the brightest young stars in European football; they’d be buying into a new phase of their attacking identity.

Still only 22, Wirtz has already matured into the heartbeat of a Bayer Leverkusen side that swept to the Bundesliga title under Xabi Alonso. His numbers are excellent, but it’s the intangibles—the rhythm, the intelligence, the sense of control—that separate him from the pack.

At Liverpool, that profile would matter more than ever.

When Manchester United hired Rubén Amorim, the word from inside Carrington was “project.” Not short-term fix, not silver bullet—project. It was a nod to the modern game’s appetite for philosophy and patience, for identity over impulse. And yet, after a season that has unravelled into a brutal tapestry of missed chances, muddled tactics, and now, no European football at all, the question must be asked: has the project failed before it ever really began?

In football, some stories feel like they were written by the gods of the game themselves—threads of fate woven through kits, club crests, and whispered chants from the stands. And so it is with Xabi Alonso.

In football, shirt numbers often carry a symbolic association with particular positions and responsibilities on the field. One of the most intriguing and versatile roles is that of the number 8. The number 8 in soccer is often associated with the box-to-box midfielder—a player tasked with significant responsibilities both defensively and offensively.