Despite being hampered by minor injury issues during his first season as a permanent member of the Stuttgart squad, as well as the start of last season, Undav forced his way back into the Germany squad in March of this year, after sitting out their entire World Cup qualification campaign, thanks to his fantastic form at club level.
Undav scored 25 goals and provided 14 assists in all competitions for Sebastian Hoeness’ side in 2025-26, with only Bayern Munich’s front three of Harry Kane, Michael Olise and Luis Diaz able to directly contribute to more goals than the Stuttgart striker as he helped them return to the Champions League via a fourth-placed finish and reach a second-straight DFB-Pokal final.
When he did get his opportunity to impress at international level again, he didn’t require much time to make an impact, with Undav coming off the bench to net an 88th-minute winner in a friendly win over Ghana. Two more goals followed in the World Cup warm-up win over Finland, prompting calls for Undav to start Germany’s first game at the finals, against Curacao.
Nagelsmann resisted that urge, as he still believed the striker was best suited to coming off the bench when opponents are tiring and, thus, leaving space for him to exploit.
It was an argument he made before and after the Ghana game, albeit with clumsy, slightly disrespectful language, for which he apologised to Undavbut it’s now become almost impossible to leave Germany’s most in-form forward out of the starting line-up.
