Florian Wirtz - Scouting report created with the first football specific A.I

How the meticulously trained model can deliver a full scouting report of a player, looking at all aspects for their play, from involvement, defending, to attacking.

A few months ago, I joined an ambitious project, twelve.football to enrich the world of football analytics by developing a cutting-edge language model specifically tailored to our beloved sport.

Driven by a passion for football and a deep belief in the power of technology, our goal was to create a tool that could transform vast amounts of data into meaningful insights, changing how teams, analysts, and fans understand player performance and potential.

Today, I am happy to share the fruits of this journey—a scouting report on Florian Wirtz, Leverkusen's star, generated by the first football-specific language model.

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Evaluating player performance and career prediction

We evaluate midfielders by their involvement, their progression, their ability to provide for teammates, their passing quality, their box threat, their active defence, and their intelligent defence.

Ultimately, a midfielder is judged primarily on whether they control the middle section of the pitch or not. If they can move the ball forward through passes into the final third, and/or they can stop the opponent from moving the ball forward, then they are doing their job well.

Florian Wirtz is a young but very promising midfielder, who is already one of the league's most reliable playmakers. He excels at providing his teammates with opportunities to score, especially through his deep completions. He has excellent passing abilities, especially when it comes to passing into the final third. Wirtz is a threat in the box, where he often gets touches. He is also a reliable performer when it comes to effectiveness, with an impressive ability to complete passes. He is not the strongest aerially, but he is good at playing progressive balls. Defensively he is average with no particular weakness in his performance. Bayer Leverkusen has a young gem in Wirtz, who could develop into a top-class midfielder.

A midfielder who provides for their teammates makes a lot of key passes, assists and second assists. They will rank highly in expected goals created and expected assists. Deep completions are also important.

Wirtz is an exceptional talent in midfield, with superb metrics in every aspect of play. He's a creative general who always seems to be in the right place at the right time, and an attacker's best friend.

Wirtz produced outstanding chance-creating performances in both attacking left half-space and central midfield. He is also a potent threat in the penalty area. However, his abilities are only average from the wings, with more improvement needed for consistency in providing threat.

Wirtz has stood out for his excellent performance as a midfielder in the Bundesliga, demonstrating his creativity in many ways. As one of the league's key players in providing teammates, he has been consistently excellent, and we can expect his high level of performance to continue in the coming years. With a strong record of outstanding providing teammates, Wirtz can expect to maintain his top-tier status amongst his peers.

Midfielders who have a strong passing ability can make various types of dangerous passes. They can cross the ball, progress the ball into the final third and complete passes within the final third.

Wirtz is a very skilled midfielder, with an impressive ability to complete passes that create high-quality chances for his teammates. He can be relied upon to make the right decisions when it comes to passing the ball and consistently makes passes that create scoring opportunities.

Wirtz is a quality passer from many areas of the attacking half, with his strongest performances coming from the half-spaces, where he can create lots of danger.

Wirtz started his career with average passing but quickly improved to become an outstanding midfielder at Bayer Leverkusen. Now at 20, he has a bright future ahead. His passing skills are expected to stay outstanding, with potential for further development. Expect Wirtz to be a top-class playmaker in the coming seasons.

Involvement tells us how involved players are in the game. It takes into account how often they touch the ball, perform defensive actions, and their participation in aerial duels and attacks that lead to shots.

Wirtz is an attacking midfielder who gets heavily involved and often has the ball at his feet, demonstrating excellent playmaking. In terms of defence he performs to the average standard in the league. However, he is not very strong in the air.

Wirtz was an outstanding and dangerous playmaker in the attacking half-spaces, as well as on the left flank, showing his flexibility to create and maintain possession on both sides of the field. His overall involvement in his own half was below average, suggesting he does little in deeper areas.

His early football days were at Bayer Leverkusen, where his involvement ratings increased from poor to good playing mainly as a midfielder in the Bundesliga. Scouts have observed his strength in controlling the pace of the game from a central position, and at only 20 years old, Wirtz has further room for improvement in the coming seasons. While his present promises a good level of involvement, we anticipate him to up his game, aiming for an outstanding involvement rating in his coming seasons.

The key to a midfielder having a high box threat is that they get into the box with the ball and/or receive the balls in the penalty area. Additionally, they should touch the ball a lot in the box, score goals, and have high expected goal numbers.

Wirtz is an outstanding attacking midfielder, showing excellence across all key metrics for box threat. His ability to create chances and dribble into the opposition's box results in high-quality chances and you can see this in his high goals per ninety. He is typical for the league in terms of his expected goals metric.

He's got good skills when it comes to shooting from distance, but struggled with creating high-quality chances in the penalty box. His proficiency in taking shots decreased further when he was in close range efforts in the six-yard box.

Wirtz's skills were impressive as a young teenager in the Bundesliga, even performing against seasoned veterans. As he develops, he appears set to become even better. His future in the league is bright, and he can be expected to remain a top offensive player.

Active defence refers to a player's successful proactive efforts to regain possession of the ball and disrupt the opponent's attacks. It encompasses tackling, intercepting passes, and winning duels against opposing players.

As a midfielder, Wirtz has a balanced approach to active defence. While he is exceptionally good at winning tackles and excelling in one vs. one battles, his stats for winning possession and other defensive actions are just around the average.

He is excellent defensively on the attacking left wing, and also performs well in the attacking left half-space. However, his defensive actions in the central and right areas of the pitch is below average, indicating a clear focus on his strength - playing on the left. His defensive work is lacking in the middle and right half of the pitch.

Wirtz has demonstrated potential at Bayer Leverkusen, but his defensive performance has yet to reach a consistent level. While there's an opportunity for improvement, progress has been slow to date, with an average overall defensive ability. A slight improvement is possible, but he'll need to work hard to consistently create defensive impact.

Intelligent defense refers to a player's ability to read the game, anticipate opponent actions, and make well-informed decisions to disrupt the opposition's attacks.

Wirtz's defensive play is not particularly exceptional, but not significantly deficient either. He reads the game reasonably well, and his intercepting, counterpressing, and ball recovering skills are at par with most midfielders.

Wirtz experienced an average season for ball recoveries in the attacking left half-space. His ability to retrieve possession in areas further up the pitch was neither remarkable nor disappointing, suggesting there could be room for improvement in this area.

Wirtz's defensive abilities have room for improvement. He struggled a fair bit with Leverkusen as a midfielder, with his defensive play getting placed below the average league standard. As 20-year old, his playstyle in the coming years may remain at this level. However, he has a chance to shore up his defence in the future. In the next season, expectations are for his defence to possibly dip to poor, but an improvement to average is also likely.

Transfer prediction - Premier League

Wirtz is a player who has shown real potential in the Bundesliga, and if he does make a transfer to the Premier League, there are metrics where he could maintain or even improve his performances.

In particular, we would expect his box threat to be even more outstanding than it currently is. However, he might initially find himself struggling to adapt in other areas, this might include his effectiveness on the pitch, involvement in the game, and active and intelligent defence skills. Nevertheless, with his developing age, Wirtz will continue to refine his involvement and maintain his current standard of progression, passing, and effectiveness.

Overall, Wirtz would be an outstanding provider of the ball and would maintain good standards in box threat and involvement in the Premier League. Though he might be found slightly lacking in some of the defensive metrics at first, his youth and constant development mean he is ultimately an exciting prospect.

Transfer prediction - La Liga

Wirtz has massive potential and is one of the biggest up-and-coming midfield talents in Germany. Moving him to LaLiga would be a chance for him to prove the talent he already demonstrated. Despite his young age, he's already a creative force, with his playmaking skills deemed outstanding, particularly in terms of providing teammates. Meanwhile, his effectiveness and box threat are also expected to improve. The lower physicality of the Spanish league versus the German, could continue to play to his strengths. Although, the standard of opponent are expected to provide tougher tests, hence a decline in progression. Wirtz is predicted to be an excellent signing for LaLiga.

Player comparisons

At only 20 years old and still developing, Florian Wirtz has already proven to be an extremely talented player. He excels at chance creation, box threat, and involvement in his team’s play, making him an all-around great attacking midfielder. While Bruno Fernandes, a 31 year-old senior player, is considered to be similarly skilled in most areas of the game, Wirtz can be considered a stronger passer and has the potential to develop his game further in the future. However, at such a young age, his skills may still need refinement in some areas, including his defensive intelligence.

Wirtz is a young player who is still developing, but his performance this season is impressive. He is rated highly in most categories for midfielders, particularly his passing, box threat and involvement in general play. Maddison has peaked at 28 years old, and while he remains a good passer of the ball and effective, his involvement is worse than that of Wirtz. Wirtz is particularly competent in providing for his teammates, which rounds out his attributes as a creative player.

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The current state of our technology is a solid foundation, yet we are already planning multiple improvements to further increase its accuracy, speed, and usability.

We are excited about the potential of this tool and are eagerly looking forward to collaborating with teams, analysts, and tech enthusiasts who are as passionate as we are.

If you are interested in discussing this technology, exploring potential collaborations, or simply want to learn more about it do not hesitate to reach out.

Dave