Wirtz will miss out on the UEFA Nations League matches against Italy for Germany and key matches for Bayer Leverkusen.
Bayer Leverkusen’s Bundesliga and Champions League title chances took a massive dent over the weekend with their loss to Werder Bremen and the ankle injury to Florian Wirtz. The chance was there for the taking with Bayern Munich’s shock 3-2 home defeat to VfL Bochum, but their gap at the top of table stays at eight points with Leverkusen’s blunder against Bremen and they will now be without their star man for several weeks.
To add insult to injury, Wirtz had been rested from the start against Bremen by Xabi Alonso to try to keep him as fresh as possible for the second leg in the Champions League round of 16 against Bayern. However, the circumstances of the match in needing to find a goal from somewhere inevitably led to Wirtz getting his injury by virtue of a challenge from Bremen’s Mitchell Weiser and Alonso was forced to replace Wirtz with Alex Grimaldo.
With the international break right around the corner, Wirtz will also miss out on the pair of UEFA Nations League quarterfinal matches for Germany against Italy later this month. They travel to Milan for the first leg on the 20th, while the return leg in Germany is slated to take place in Dortmund on the 23rd to see who will progress to the semifinals of the competition.
Germany manger Julian Nagelsmann is set to announce his squad for the upcoming pair of matches later this week, but he will now be without one of the first names that’s routinely on his team sheet. Ahead of his squad selection, the former Bayern, RB Leipzig and Hoffenheim manager expressed his consolation for Leverkusen’s playmaker, knowing that he faces a spell on the sidelines with his ankle injury. “I’m very sorry for Flo. There are big games coming up now, both with the club and the national team, which he will miss and which Bayer and we will miss extremely. The most important thing now is his health. All of us in the national team wish him a speedy recovery,” Nagelsmann told SID Sports News (via @iMiaSanMia).
For Wirtz, there is also a risk that he could miss Leverkusen’s DFB-Pokal semifinal clash against Arminia Bielefeld in what is realistically Die Werkself’s last remaining hope at winning any silverware this season.
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