LIVERPOOL — A 40-foot bronze statue depicting the precise millisecond Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak failed to convert their chances against Newcastle was unveiled outside Anfield on Tuesday, with club officials announcing the pair will train with the monument daily until their form improves.
The statue, cast from 14 tons of recycled trophy metal and mounted on a rotating plinth, freezes the duo in the exact posture of their most disappointing moment of the season. A plaque beneath it reads: «This is what a £200 million partnership looks like when it forgets where the goal is.»
Manager Arne Slot has instituted a new training regime requiring Wirtz and Isak to complete 200 laps around the statue each morning before touching a football. «They will run until they understand the geometry of the thing,» Slot told reporters. «The bronze does not move. The bronze does not miss. The bronze is our teacher now.»
The monument has already changed the neighborhood. Local residents report that the rotating plinth, which completes a full revolution every 45 minutes, has become a tourist attraction, with guided tours running every hour. A nearby café has renamed its most popular sandwich the «Near Miss» in honor of the sculpture.
Gary Neville, who first called the pair Liverpool's biggest disappointments, has been appointed honorary curator of the statue. «I said they must improve,» Neville said. «I did not anticipate the club would take my analysis and turn it into a 40-foot public works project, but here we are. The bronze is undefeated.»
The club has confirmed that if the pair's form does not improve by the end of the month, the statue will be fitted with a motion-activated speaker that plays the sound of the Newcastle crowd's jeers every time they walk past.