Wunderkids: Building football’s most exciting young XI - week two: Florian Wirtz, winger

It is the stuff of management dreams — a blank cheque to build the most exciting young starting XI in world football.

But that is exactly what new BBC Sounds podcast Wunderkids is offering, in fantasy form at least, over its 11 episodes. The first two episodes are available to listen to now.

The Wunderkids team, in conjunction with BBC Sport, have come up with 11 players and presenter Steve Crossman will be joined by experts to discuss the latest inclusion, with one new player revealed each week.

The criteria are simple — each player must be young and have the potential to become the next superstar in their position.

But we are not going for the obvious names — the likes of Kylian Mbappe, Erling Braut Haaland or Jadon Sancho — we are looking at the players who are still on the verge of making the breakthrough into the big time.

In the first episode, we filled one of the striker positions with new Manchester City forward Julian Alvarez and in this week's episode we are looking at the right-wing spot. Taking his place in the team is Bayer Leverkusen's Florian Wirtz.

Wirtz has been billed as the next Kai Havertz but, for many of those who have seen his progress, the 18-year-old is more than just a successor to the German midfielder.

Wirtz replaced Havertz in the Leverkusen team after the latter joined Chelsea, stepping up after being fast tracked through the youth team just six months after joining the club from Cologne.

Havertz was Leverkusen's youngest debutant and goalscorer but Wirtz has taken those two records and he is seen as being further down the development road than Havertz was at the same age.

Wirtz's family background suggests a sporting career was always on the cards. His elder sister Juliane is a professional