Boss Hugo: Ekitike is Flo's New Bro

Liverpool hit attacking heights in midweek that few teams have managed against Real Madrid. The combination of Hugo Ekitike and Florian Wirtz proved influential.

Liverpool’s 1-0 win over Real Madrid is utterly fascinating to analyse. A Reds side that lost six games in a run of seven has now beaten two of the top six clubs in the world (according to the Opta rankings) this season.

They hit two attacking marks against Real that opposing teams rarely manage to combine. Liverpool produced 2.3 non-penalty expected goals while putting nine shots on target, a pairing which has only happened to Madrid six times in their 412 matches in the FBRef database.

A combination of this nature should produce more than a single goal but Thibaut gonna Courtois when up against the Reds. It’s worth considering how Liverpool were able to generate so many expected goals against a side that arrived having won every match bar one in 2025/26.

Having their strongest performance for set piece xG this season - and second best in the Arne Slot era - clearly helped. Nonetheless, they did well to be so effective when having so little of the ball. Only once before this season had the Reds had less than 53 per cent of the possession, when they had 47 at Stamford Bridge, yet they attempted just 40 per cent of the passes here.

Liverpool completed over 100 passes fewer than in any other league or European match this season. The interesting aspect of this is that centre forward Hugo Ekitike received more passes than in any other game for the club in the big two competitions, despite been taken off in the 79th minute.

His tally was inflated thanks mainly to the efforts of one man: Florian Wirtz. Is this budding relationship ready to bloom?

Reviewing the match in The Guardian, Nick Ames wrote: “Even if Wirtz and the rangy, urgent, sometimes balletic Hugo Ekitiké are not always on the same wavelength, the direction of travel is positive.” It could be argued they were very much in tune; sure, the odd pass went astray (below) but making things work in the final third is not easy.

Wirtz’s starting position was on the left, a controversial choice based on his performance there in the loss to Crystal Palace. He played the role differently and more effectively in midweek though. Being in proximity to Andy Robertson and Ekitike rather than Milos Kerkez and Alexander Isak likely helped, but the 22-year-old largely stuck to the left rather than covering the full width of the pitch.

Here are Wirtz’s average position and heat map for the two games. He was plum centre at Selhurst Park, further to the right than Isak. Playing in that way did at least enable the German to have his only Opta-defined big chance of his Liverpool career. However, he only created one chance whereas against Madrid he teed up five, one of which carried the second highest xG value of any shot in the match.

Florian Wirtz’s average position and heatmap for Liverpool’s matches with Crystal Palace and Real Madrid

The big chance he created was for Dominik Szoboszlai in the first half, with the pass coming from the right edge of the penalty area. This is playing a floating role in the best way possible, popping up in the right place at the right time (on the right, in this case).

Another contribution Wirtz made on that side of the pitch, on the half way line, proved of minor significance. He acted as half of a one-two with Ekitike, enabling the Frenchman to carry the ball up field to deliver it to Mohamed Salah. While his cross was unsuccessful, the next time Madrid had sustained possession was when they were kicking off at 1-0 down.

Ekitike was the end point for nine Wirtz passes, the most he has received from a single player in any league or European match this season. It helped the former Leverkusen man strengthen his position as the player who passes to Hugo most frequently.

The samples are small for every player, the passes infrequent. Even so, it would be good to see Salah passing to Ekitike a little more often. That’s for another day, another article, another time, another place.

For now, the focus is Wirtz. He passed to Liverpool’s number nine on the left flank before the striker tried to carry the ball into the box. They linked up centrally to fashion the Reds’ first counter attack chance of the contest, then combined in a similar area when Ekitike drew a yellow card foul from Dean Huijsen.

After the break, Wirtz aimed for the ex-Frankfurt man with a corner; though unsuccessful in that regard, the ball reached Virgil van Dijk for a big chance. Wirtz’s only successful pass into the Madrid box occurred four minutes later. You can guess who was the recipient. Cue Davina McCall: Here are their best bits.

Did you see Ekitike’s thumbs up after the corner? Lovely stuff.

Wirtz doesn’t have as much experience of playing on the left as you might think, with Transfermarkt’s records allotting him 488 minutes there for Leverkusen. You would believe he was unprepared based on his efforts at Palace. But whether he often plays there in future, it worked well against one of the big dog teams of European football.

It worked out very well for Ekitike too.