By Opta Analyst | Created at 2026-06-03 14:48:16 | Updated at 2026-06-07 11:57:45
3 days ago
Until recently Deniz Undav’s role for Germany at the 2026 FIFA World Cup seemed destined to be restricted to one as a super-sub. But fantastic performances at club level and three goal involvements in the recent friendly win over Finland might have changed all that.
Among all players named in the German squad for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, Deniz Undav was the most heavily involved in his club side’s goals in 2025-26. After helping his VfB Stuttgart team qualify for the UEFA Champions League, he now looks to have earned himself a starting role in Germany’s team at the perfect time, and against the odds.
The elevation of his importance in Julian Nagelsmann’s plans for the World Cup are a great example of how moods and opinions quickly change in football.
Despite scoring a last-minute winner in the March friendly against Ghana in Stuttgart, the German head coach caused a stir when he publicly criticised Undav in his post-match interview.
Rating Undav’s performance as “not good” after the striker had come off the bench at the start of the second half, Naglesmann added: “I didn’t think his performance today was good up until the goal. He touched the ball once, but he’s also a top striker because he’s in the right place at the right time. That’s what I meant. If he’s been running around for 70 minutes beforehand – I don’t know if he’d do it like that then.”
Those words suggested that the national team boss didn’t see Undav as anything but an option off the bench to change a game if needed late on. They also sparked a public debate in Germany about whether this was the right way to treat the top scoring German in Europe’s major leagues less than three months before the World Cup.
But a lot can change in a short space of time. Only two months later, Nagelsmann’s viewpoint of Undav was very different following the 4-0 win over Finland last Sunday, in which the 29-year-old played a decisive role with two goals and one assist.
“I think Deniz was very dangerous and played a good game,” Nagelsmann said. “If you score two goals and set up another, you’re not going to lose your spot on the team.”
That was as close to a guarantee of Undav’s involvement in Germany’s opening group game against Curaçao as you can get. But has the Stuttgart striker done enough to deserve that role? The statistics suggest so.
With six goals and two assists in the Naglesmann reign, no player to have played at least 200 minutes for the national team in that time has averaged a goal involvement as frequently as Undav. His eight goal involvements have come largely as a substitute across 342 minutes on the pitch, meaning he’s averaged a goal or assist every 43 minutes under the current German head coach.
Among the Most Prolific Scorers in 2025-26
Undav’s performances at club level this season suggest he’s ready to hit the World Cup running. He finished as the second top scorer in the German Bundesliga with 19 goals, and only the prolific Harry Kane (36) scored more.
What makes the figure even more impressive is that none of his 19 goals came from the penalty spot. Undav only had one opportunity to score from a penalty in 2025-26, missing that attempt in the Bundesliga in mid-April against Hamburger SV. Had he scored that, he’d have ended on 20 league goals in a season for just the second time in his career, just behind his 26 goals for Union Saint-Gilloise in 2021-22.
After two successful seasons in the Belgian top flight with USG, Brighton & Hove Albion brought the striker to the Premier League. But Undav’s time in England was frustrating, with a lack of playing time – just 619 league minutes, which made up 18% of Brighton’s Premier League campaign in 2022-23 – seeing him move to Stuttgart, originally on loan on the eve of 2023-24, after just one season on the English south coast.
But his move to Stuttgart has worked out for the best. Over the last three Bundesliga seasons, Undav has scored 46 times for the club. Across all players in the German top flight since 2023-24, only Kane (98) and Borussia Dortmund’s Serhou Guirassy (66) have scored more often.
Playing as a combination of a deep-lying striker behind Ermedin Demirovic and a lone centre forward, Undav consistently found ways to get into scoring positions this season, leading him to take the most shots of any player in the 2025-26 Bundesliga campaign (122) – a new club record for a Stuttgart player in recorded history (since 2004-05).
As a prolific shooter, Undav averaged 4.9 shots per 90 in the Bundesliga last season; more than any other player in the league. That, in turn, led to him attempting shots from harder positions to score from than many of the other leading scorers.
His xG per non-penalty shot was 0.13, lower than players like Kane (0.17), Guirassy (0.19), Luis Díaz (0.17) and Patrik Schick (0.20). However, he made the most from his scoring opportunities, and as a result, he exceeded his non-penalty xG total by 3.6 (19 goals from 15.4 xG).
Solving a Problem for Germany?
Based on club form coming into the 2026 World Cup, it’s going to be hard to justify Undav’s exclusion if Naglesmann does end up keeping him on the bench. With 25 goal involvements (19 goals, 6 assists), the Stuttgart forward is undoubtedly the in-form attacking player in his 26-man squad for the tournament.
In Naglesmann’s preferred 4-2-3-1 formation, there are essentially two spots up for grabs for Undav – the number nine role and the role of the player behind the lone striker. Injuries have kept players like Kai Havertz and Jamal Musiala out for long spells of the 2025-26 campaign, while, despite a promising start, Nick Woltemade scored just one goal and assisted two more in his 19 Premier League appearances for Newcastle from Christmas onwards.
It is telling that the three German Premier League players Woltemade (11), Florian Wirtz (8), and Havertz (5) still have fewer goal contributions combined in the 2025-26 league season than Undav (25), and that among the German players with the most goal involvements in Europe’s top five leagues, there is hardly a player who has recently played a key role on the national team.
German Player League Goal Involvements in 2025-26 (Top 5 Euro Leagues)
Deniz Undav – 25 goal involvements, 1 start for Germany since August 2025
Saïd El Mala – 17 goal involvements, 0 starts for Germany since August 2025
Jamie Leweling – 16 goal involvements, 1 start for Germany since August 2025
Maximilian Beier -15 goal involvements, 0 starts for Germany since August 2025
Nick Woltemade – 11 goal involvements, 7 starts for Germany since August 2025
Lennart Karl – 10 goal involvements, 1 start for Germany since August 2025
Florian Wirtz – 8 goal involvements, 9 starts from Germany since August 2025
Jamal Musiala – 7 goal involvements, 1 start for Germany since August 2025
Kai Havertz – 5 goal involvements, 2 starts for Germany since August 2025
A Change of Heart from Naglesmann?
With the described efficiency in front of goal, Undav could well be the solution to one of Germany’s biggest problems in recent tournaments: converting chances into goals.
The Germans will have no desire recalling the numerous missed opportunities at the 2022 World Cup, which, combined with a defence that was far too vulnerable, led to them being eliminated in the group stage for the second consecutive World Cup.
Although Germany played only three matches, they tallied the fourth-highest xG of any team (10.1) in Qatar 2022, underachieving that xG total by 4.1 goals (6 goals scored). That saw Germany end the tournament as the biggest underperformers in front of goal across all 32 teams.
Undav’s strong form and efficiency this season seem to have prompted Nagelsmann to reflect on, and even reconsider, his views since the international matches in March. Shortly after the game against Ghana, he had already publicly retracted his criticism of the Stuttgart striker.
“At that moment, I just let myself get a little carried away by all the questions on the same topic. It wasn’t right, and the tone was far too harsh for public consumption”, he revealed during the talk show series Bestbesetzung on MagentaTV.
In a conversation with his wife, Nagelsmann came to the realisation that he should apologise to Undav: “I told her I’d call him, and then she said, ‘Yes, that’s what I’d advise you to do.’” His wife’s advice might pay dividends for the German team this summer.
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