Five VfB stars are in the spotlight as the next World Cup surprise is revealed

Undav Stiller

Further details are emerging ahead of national coach Julian Nagelsmann's official squad announcement for the 2026 World Cup.

According to Sky, Nagelsmann has now informed all the VfB Stuttgart players who were under consideration of his squad plans. Three of them are reportedly included: Deniz Undav, Jamie Leweling and Angelo Stiller.

The decision is surprising, given Stiller's recent struggles under Nagelsmann. During the World Cup qualifiers, he started only once—in the opening 2-0 loss to Slovakia—and was left out of the final two matches. 

He travelled to the final training camp only as a late replacement for the injured Felix Nmecha and Aleksandar Pavlovic. "He's an outstanding player with huge potential and consistently strong performances, but he's up against Pavlo, who I currently rate a notch higher," Nagelsmann explained in mid-March, when Stiller was again left out. "Especially regarding certain specific aspects, I don't currently see Angelo in the starting eleven, so we decided to fill the spots behind him differently."

Yet Stiller subsequently started against Switzerland and Ghana, earning explicit praise from Nagelsmann, and those performances have now earned him a place on the World Cup plane.

By contrast, two players who featured in the Euro squad two years ago will not travel to North America: Maximilian Mittelstädt and Chris Führich. 

Chris Führich, Deniz Undav

Nagelsmann is now relying on other players: Führich and Mittelstädt were still in the squad for the home European Championship.

Mittelstädt had remained part of the extended first-team squad both during and after the European Championship, but lost this status to David Raum, who is likely to be a regular at the World Cup. Nagelsmann now plans to rotate the backup option. Although Mittelstädt has reclaimed his place in VfB's first-team squad, he was left out of the last three national training camps. Instead, Eintracht Frankfurt's Nathaniel Brown is poised to travel as Raum's primary understudy.

Führich, meanwhile, played his way back into the national team's radar with four goals and four assists in the Bundesliga since February, and, like Stiller, was drafted as a late addition to the March training camps. He started against Ghana and earned his first cap since the 1-1 Nations League draw with Hungary on 19 November 2024.

"He's in such good form. He has to go to the World Cup," TV pundit Dietmar Hamann insisted on Sky in early May. Nevertheless, Nagelsmann has evidently changed his mind.