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Florian Wirtz's youth coach at FC Koln has recalled how the youngster pledged to win the Ballon d'Or when he was just a young boy.
Wirtz emerged as one of the best young players in the world during his time at Bayer Leverkusen, but he was actually developed a few miles away from Leverkusen, in the German city of Cologne.
Wirtz spent 10 years in Koln's academy between 2010 and 2020 before joining Leverkusen, and it was after a game for one of Koln's youth teams — in which he scored a stunning goal — that he told his coach at the time of his lofty ambition.
"I [first] heard the name [of Wirtz] in a very early situation in my last club, FC Koln," Markus Daun, a youth coach at Koln, recalled. "All the guys in the youth team talked about a big player in the Under-12s.
"I had a very special moment with him in the last game before a winter break. We played against a small club and he started the game in very bad conditions, a lot of rain and wind. It was awful, but he started the game with the first touch, he shoots from about 70 meters into the goal.
"After this game, we go for a dinner and the guys of the team ask me late in the evening, 'Mr Daun, can we drink a beer?' and I said, 'I don't know if you can do it. I'm not allowed to say you can do it. But you can go in another room, and I don't see it!'
"So they drink two or three beers, and after this, Florian came to me and was a little bit happy about his goal, and he said 'Mr Daun, I like you very much.'
"I asked him in a meeting about his career goals. All the guys from the team said, 'I will be German championship winner this year, I will be in the starting XI,' and Florian said, 'I will win the Ballon' d'Or in the future.'
"And I said, 'OK.' Normally I would say, 'OK, please, stay realistic', but in this case I said, 'OK, go your way and you can achieve it.'
"This guy has had big challenges in his life, between very young ages to Under-17 with big injuries, he broke his leg, but he comes back much stronger than before.
"That's because of his focus, and his mentality. I knew from the beginning that he will go his way until the top of the world."
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