Young national player Florian Wirtz is already one of the defining figures of the Bundesliga at the age of 18 – and he also has his big sister to thank for that.
“It starts with the fact that we used to play and fight in a confined space in the living room,” he said in a double interview with Juliane Wirtz for the magazine “11Freunde”: “That gave us a certain toughness in a duel early on.”
Like Florian, Juliane Wirtz has now made it to Bayer Leverkusen in the Bundesliga, and his little brother certainly served as a role model. “My brother’s skills were often an incentive for me,” she said: “When I did an extra unit with my father, he said from time to time: ‘This or that Flori does well. Try and see if you you can do it.”
From Florian Wirtz’s point of view, the different framework conditions between women’s and men’s football are still huge. “Of course I would like my sister to be able to play football under the same conditions as me,” he said, “but there is still a long way to go.”
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