Steve Walsh tried and failed to convince Joshua Zirkzee to sign for Premier League outfit Everton – now he’s got a huge future in the Bundesliga.
Joshua Zirkzee is living the dream.
Not many budding 18-year-old footballers are handed a four-year contract with Bayern Munich but Zirkzee, a Dutch U19 international who has been turning heads left, right and centre in Bavaria, is no ordinary teenager. And he clearly has the trust of the Bundesliga champions.
“Joshua is a great talent,” Bayern’s sporting director Hasan Salihamidzic told the club’s website with the ink still drying on the teenager’s new, long-term deal at the Allianz Arena.
“He is already consistently performing well with the amateurs. We will try to develop him further in the best way possible so that we hopefully see him sometime also on our professional team.”
Two years ago, Zirkzee appeared to be on his way to Everton with director of football Steve Walsh, the man credited with discovering N’Golo Kante, Riyad Mahrez and Jamie Vardy at Leicester City, rumoured to have met the then-Feyenoord wonderkid in Merseyside in an attempt to lure him to Goodison Park, as reported by Football Oranje.
Marcel Brands, a Dutchman who shares Walsh’s commitment to snapping up the brightest young talents in the European game, surely would have continued the pursuit of Zirkzee if Bayern hadn’t got their first.
FC Hollywood are putting together an exciting cast of child stars and with Zirkzee committing his future to the dominant force of German football, he will be hoping to follow Alfonso Davies, Joshua Kimmich and Jan Fiete Arp into the first team sooner rather than later.
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