Der Raumdeuter

Liverpool are signing Thomas Müller, kinda.

So I’ve been thinking about Florian Wirtz again. Look, when Liverpool spend more than £100m on a single player, it’s a pretty big deal. I’ll be writing about this guy a lot over the next few years.

But I’m going to start this post with a nugget from my last piece on him. You can read that here. I touched on his tendency to see a ton of possession — despite his label as a forward — but didn’t really delve much deeper at the time.

He’s always involved. Here’s a mad one for you. Wirtz has averaged over 80 touches per 90 in two consecutive Bundesliga seasons now. That’s insane for a forward. Genuinely mental.

Like, for context, only 12 players in the Premier League cleared the 80-touch bar this season: Virgil van Dijk, Cristian Romero, Mateo Kovačić, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Joško Gvardiol, Tosin Adarabioyo, Manuel Akanji, William Saliba, Levi Colwill, Reece James, Kyle Walker and Joachim Andersen. Notice a theme?

Well, that was your starter last week. I’ve since decided it’s such a distinctive quality that it deserves an entire post. So go and freshen up, here’s your main course.

Máhlzeit.

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Alright, touches, then. Not the most glamorous of metrics, I realise that. But insightful nevertheless. As always, it’s about interpretation. It’s about translation.

Like, pass completion is your classic example. The data skeptic will always point out the surface-level dangers of rating players based on whether their passes are successful or not. But those concerns are obvious, and nobody with a brain would entertain them for longer than five seconds.

Touches isn’t too dissimilar to pass completion. Like, what’s the point? The people care about goals and assists. They care about wins. If your new signing touches the ball a lot, so what?

Well, in my last Wirtz-inspired post, I mentioned his goals and assists. And his ability on the dribble. And his progressive passing. And his finishing. And his versatility across different spots.

We already know this guy is going to move the needle for the Reds. I’m interested in his potential impact on the recipe. Like, once adding such a strong ingredient, how might things change at Anfield, and how do you go about integrating an offensive player with such a weird superpower?

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Seeing the ball often in advanced areas is a relatively rare trait. And the numbers capture how rare. So here’s a bit of context having played around with a few filters.

Around 2,700 players featured in Europe’s big five leagues this season. 1,174 of them accumulated at least 1,350 minutes on the pitch — which equates to 15 full matches — so there’s our sample.

Only 79 of them averaged at least 80 touches per 90. Remove goalkeepers and defenders from the equation, and we’re left with just 24 players. Virtually all of them are midfielders. The deep-lying kind.

Joshua Kimmich, Angelo Stiller, Vitinha, Pedri, Granit Xhaka. The usual suspects. But there’s only one player who has spent some of his minutes as a forward, and it’s him. Our next transformer. Wirtz.

Some players vaguely compare to him based on their respective profiles. Rodrigo De Paul, Warren Zaïre-Emery and Hakan Çalhanoğlu, perhaps. But they all play deeper nowadays.

The closest remaining player to Wirtz is probably Isco — now aged 33 — who has averaged the exact same number of touches while playing as a number ten for Real Betis this term.

The former Real Madrid playmaker is cool. But he doesn’t offer the same degree of industry as Wirtz. Not as tactically flexible, either. Slower. Fewer goals, fewer assists. And 11 years older, of course. Just saying.

So Wirtz is a dominant attacker. Everything runs through him. You get players like that sometimes. Lionel Messi, Philippe Coutinho, Bruno Fernandes. Lots of shots. Lots of touches. The ball belongs to them.

To further emphasise his habit of getting involved with possession, I’ve grouped him alongside a select few relevant players below. This is a crazy level of usage for a player who could end up being deployed as a striker of sorts next season.

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So what does a player like that need to thrive? Well, the obvious answer is freedom. You don’t want to shackle this guy. Seeing that much of the ball — especially inside the pitch — is no fluke. It’s because Wirtz can move.

You don’t tend to become a passing option by standing still. Wirtz floats all over the place. Always between the lines. Always helping his team climb the pitch like it’s a ladder.

Maybe it’s a German thing. Around a decade ago, a certain Thomas Müller got asked what makes him special as a player. “Ich bin ein Raumdeuter,” he said. Or for those who prefer English, “I am a space interpreter.”

It was a brilliant line, and one that resulted in a new tactical role being created on Football Manager. Müller has always had a knack for being in the right place at the right time. His timing is exceptional. One of the great opportunistic players of the modern era.

There’s kinda no such thing as a raumdeuter. It’s an abstract concept. An idea or behaviour, rather than a position. “It’s all about the timing between the person who plays the pass and the person making a run into the right zone,” said Müller.

But the Bayern Munich legend has never been much of a high-volume passer like Wirtz, who has perhaps interpreted the imaginary role in his own way during his time at Bayer Leverkusen, adding layers to become a raumdeuter who has a real impact on tempo and build-up play.

I described him as an advanced pivot on last week’s podcast. It’s like deploying a possession magnet like Rodri or Toni Kroos, but in the final third. A player who primarily governs the middle, but has a license to travel.

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Wirtz will have designated duties on the defensive end for Liverpool. The collective matters, after all. But when the Reds have the ball, he should be free to do whatever he wants. Müller reincarnated. The Anfield raumdeuter.

See you next week. I’ll probably write about Wirtz again.