{"id":3339,"date":"2026-06-15T06:14:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T06:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/?p=3339"},"modified":"2026-06-15T06:14:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T06:14:14","slug":"world-cup-2026-liverpool-boss-iraolas-fascinating-day-of-world-cup-scouting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/?p=3339","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026: Liverpool boss Iraola&#8217;s fascinating day of World Cup scouting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In his first campaign at Anfield, Wirtz too often appeared a square peg in a round hole, playing in behind the strikers as well on the flanks, but never flourishing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In Houston, Wirtz played on the left, perhaps giving Iraola food for thought, especially as Cody Gakpo had a poor season in that position. He created Germany&#8217;s opening goal for Felix Nmecha with the sort of delicate touch and quick thinking that eluded him for much of last term.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Wirtz had 39 touches in the final third, instrumental as Germany ran riot.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Former England striker Chris Sutton, in Houston for BBC Radio 5 Live, said: &#8220;The mitigation must be that this was Curacao, but the Liverpool fans who watched the game, especially in the first half, would be wondering if it was the same Florian Wirtz who played for them last season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;He looked happy in a German jersey, at ease and playing with freedom.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sutton added: &#8220;He was sharp off the left, drifting inside to play quick, incisive passes. He was creative and cunning. He looked unburdened. He was a real menace with Jamal Musiala.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Iraola will hope to lift the weight off Wirtz&#8217;s shoulders at Liverpool.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In his first campaign at Anfield, Wirtz too often appeared a square peg in a round hole, playing in behind&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3340,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}