Bundesliga 2026/27 Tactical Previews | VfB Stuttgart

Bundesliga 2026/27 Tactical Previews | VfB Stuttgart Our Get German Football News 2026/27 Bundesliga Tactical Previews series continues with a look at VfB Stuttgart. Oh, Stuttgart. You adorable little red-striped menace. There was a time, not particularly long ago, when the author could approach the VfB section of these previews with a reassuringly familiar collection of questions. Who left? Who needs replacing? How much of Sebastian Hoeneß’ latest carefully constructed football machine has the transfer market carried away in several large sacks? Last summer, amid approximately 546,789 Nick Woltemade stories and enough aborted transfer sagas to shorten one’s life expectancy, the author eventually concluded that Stuttgart possessed a talented upper-table side but were “plainly NOT title contenders” . They responded by finishing fourth and qualifying for the Champions League again. So much for that. Perhaps one should simply accept what Stuttgart have become. Hoeneß took over a relegation candidate in 2023 and somehow turned the whole operation into one of German football’s most reliably entertaining success stories. The Pokal arrived. European football kept arriving. Champions League qualification has now arrived twice. At some point, the cute little comeback story stopped being cute because it kept happening. Unfortunately for everyone else, the club itself remains rather adorable. It helps that Stuttgart possess Deniz Undav, German football’s resident clown prince and a man apparently determined to turn every mixed-zone interview into open-mic night. Keep him forever. Always give him a microphone afterward. In previous summers, Hoeneß’ principal task was figuring out how to replace what success had taken away. This time, most of the good stuff is still sitting right there in front of him. The largest tactical problem currently confronting the coach may simply be explaining to several very good professional footballers why eleven remains the maximum number permitted on the pitch. How terribly sad for him. The author shall now inspect Hoeneß’ overflowing toy box and attempt to work out how all the pieces fit. VfB Stuttgart The pleasant novelty here is that the personnel section does not begin with an autopsy. Stuttgart have retained the spine, secured Undav, and then spent aggressively to make an already strong squad even deeper. That does not mean the summer has been simple. Nübel’s departure creates a goalkeeper succession, Pejcinovic and Sauer immediately alter attacking hierarchies, Prömel places pressure on the captain, and late interest in Demirovic and El Khannouss threatens to complicate what otherwise looks like unusually tidy work. Before Hoeneß can begin solving his luxury problems on the pitch, it is worth establishing exactly how many of them the transfer market has created. Major personnel shifts, Stuttgart Estimated Summer Transfer Balance = –€45.6m Stuttgart got the most important piece of summer business out of the way before anything else could become complicated. Deniz Undav extended his contract. Keeping the 30-year-old – 25 goals and 12 assists across 45 competitive appearances last season, but considerably more important to this team than even those numbers suggest – ensured that Hoeneß would retain the attacking reference point, locker-room personality and increasingly important identification figure around whom much of the project now revolves. After several summers spent wondering which essential Stuttgart player somebody richer might purchase next, beginning this one by securing Undav felt like precisely the right statement. The most unusual thing about what followed is what hasn’t happened. For once, the summer did not involve several weeks of watching richer clubs arrive with increasingly offensive amounts of money and remove large chunks of Hoeneß’ starting XI. Alexander Nübel’s return to Bayern following the conclusion of his loan represents the only major departure from last season’s established first-choice group thus far. Instead of rebuilding another partially dismantled team, Stuttgart have spent approximately €55m adding quality to one that was already good enough to finish fourth. The author had almost forgotten this was permitted. Stuttgart deliberately declined to search immediately for another established first-choice keeper and instead handed the job to academy product Dennis Seimen following his excellent loan spell with Paderborn. Naturally, Seimen then suffered a thigh injury during the second week of preparation and will miss the beginning of the season. Fabian Bredlow takes over for now. Undav immediately texted Fabian Bredlow: “We need you. Go for it.” Bredlow then set about trying to prove Stuttgart needn’t buy anybody else . Stuttgart continue to monitor the goalkeeper market, but Hoeneß has repeatedly stressed that the club trusts its long-serving number two and currently does not expect another signing to become necessary. Elsewhere, Stuttgart have spent heavily without actually needing to replace departed stars. The biggest investment is €25m striker Dzenan Pejcinovic, a move that does rather more than provide another interesting young attacker. The 21-year-old arrives amid some huge expectations from us Bundesliga journalists. Leo Sauer, another investment worth around €15m, supplies similar competition on the flanks. Bilal El Khannouss represents a different kind of €15m expenditure. Stuttgart’s purchase merely converts last season’s Leicester loan into a permanent arrangement, keeping one of the squad’s most technically gifted creators in place. Perhaps the cleverest piece of business required no transfer fee at all. Grischa Prömel arrived from Hoffenheim on a free and has immediately complicated a midfield hierarchy that already contained Angelo Stiller, captain Atakan Karazor and Chema Andrés. Prömel brings Bundesliga experience, leadership, box-to-box running and considerably more penalty-area threat than Stuttgart generally receive from the deeper midfield positions. The competition is serious enough that even Karazor’s armband does not guarantee him a starting place. Hoeneß possesses the sort of central-midfield problem coaches generally complain about only because smiling too openly attracts bad karma. All this abundance inevitably creates casualties. Jovan Milosevic returned from Bremen, scored and created goals throughout an excellent pre-season and still found no realistic pathway beyond Undav, Demirovic and Pejcinovic. Rather than accept yet another loan, the Serbian striker completed an €8m move to Sporting Braga. Laurin Ulrich headed to Paderborn on loan, Noah Darvich joined Elversberg and Pascal Stenzel departed at the end of his contract. Further exits remain possible for players such as Leonidas Stergiou and Josha Vagnoman as Stuttgart attempt to reduce a squad that currently contains rather more useful footballers than Hoeneß can reasonably keep entertained. That last point is what makes the closing weeks of the window so intriguing. Stuttgart began by securing Undav, then entered the rare position of possessing continuity, Champions League quality and enough financial freedom to make that squad deeper. Pejcinovic, Sauer and Prömel have strengthened genuine areas of competition without requiring replacements for half a starting XI. Seimen represents an ambitious internal succession plan. The young central defenders remain in place. Stiller, Führich and most of the established spine remain in place. For the moment, this looks less like reconstruction than reinforcement. Notes from pre-season, Stuttgart There are worse ways to begin a pre-season than scoring 20 goals in three matches. There are also, admittedly, more scientifically rigorous ways of preparing for Champions League football than battering Balingen, Hollenbach, and Kickers Offenbach. Still, the results mattered less than what Sebastian Hoeneß began experimenting with. Stuttgart opened the summer in a back four and immediately installed Nikolas Nartey at right-back, an unfamiliar assignment for the converted midfielder. The move initially owed much to Lorenz Assignon’s rehabilitation from shoulder surgery, but Nartey quickly turned an emergency solution into something considerably more interesting. His midfield schooling allowed the left-footer to step inward from the right and create additional central superiority in possession, a mechanism Stuttgart continued working on throughout the summer. The squad itself nevertheless remains versatile enough for Hoeneß to revert to a back three should he wish. The opening 7-0 win over Balingen offered the first glimpse of the idea. Chema Andrés and new arrival Grischa Prömel worked centrally, while Chris Führich and Maximilian Mittelstädt repeatedly overloaded the left. Tiago Tomás pushed high around Jovan Milosevic and the latter responded with two goals and an assist. Führich contributed a goal and an assist himself. Führich promptly repeated that haul in the 5-0 win over Hollenbach. The German international’s work on the left produced Tomás’ opener before he added the second himself. After the customary full XI change at half-time, Stuttgart became even more assertive. Lazar Jovanovic drifted inside from the right while Mittelstädt and Jarzinho Malanga shared the width on the opposite flank. Mittelstädt, Milosevic, and Nartey scored in a 13-minute burst. The summer’s first minor complication had already arrived by then. Dennis Seimen, intended to take over as Stuttgart’s new number one following his excellent loan spell at Paderborn, suffered a thigh injury expected to keep him out until at least the end of September. Fabian Bredlow consequently inherited the gloves for the duration of the preparation campaign. Stuttgart’s third lower-league outing produced an 8-1 demolition of Offenbach in temperatures approaching 36 degrees. Hoeneß sensibly dispensed with relentless high pressing and instead had his team defend from a more ordered base. Chema worked as the deepest midfielder, the flanks were occupied twice over, and Tomás and Laurin Ulrich frequently dropped out of the front line to connect play. The second-half structure changed again. Milosevic and Oliver Rölke provided something closer to a genuine pair up front, Stuttgart compacted the middle before breaking directly into the forwards or wide areas, and Jovanovic repeatedly moved inside while Josha Vagnoman supplied the width on his own. Jovanovic finished with two goals and an assist. Those first three scorelines were pleasant enough. Paris FC provided the first result worth taking seriously. Stuttgart were the better side for much of the scheduled 105-minute contest and should probably have won. Führich again tortured an opponent down the left, setting up Jovanovic for the opener before delivering the free kick Dan-Axel Zagadou headed home for 2-0. Mittelstädt also had a penalty saved by Kevin Trapp, while further opportunities went begging. The eventual 2-2 nevertheless exposed something useful. Stuttgart continued chasing further goals rather than protecting their advantage, spaces opened behind the advancing structure, and Luca Koleosho punished them twice on counterattacks. The equalizer arrived with the final action of the additional 15 minutes. At least there was no question as to whether Stuttgart’s attacking football could survive better opposition. Führich, in particular, carried his outrageous early form straight into the first serious test. His opening three friendlies had already yielded a goal and an assist in each; against Paris, he supplied both Stuttgart goals. Someone wants back on the German national team something fierce. Based on what we witnessed this summer in the States, he’s more than welcome to tag along next time. A week later, the 3-1 victory over Everton demonstrated considerably more. Hoeneß used a 4-4-2, Stuttgart dominated the opening exchanges, and Nartey produced the performance that effectively transformed his right-back experiment into a legitimate starting claim. Milosevic released him following a sharp combination through the middle and Nartey drove forward to score the opener. He defended well too and emerged as arguably Stuttgart’s best player. There was a wobble. Everton took control for roughly 15 minutes after the goal, Zagadou departed injured, and Finn Jeltsch was required to intervene as the visitors threatened an equalizer. The Zagadou injury pushed the number of frowny faces the writer could squeeze into a notebook line. Honestly. How many more stories like this? Stuttgart recovered before the interval and then controlled larger portions of the second half. The mass changes around the hour provided another reminder of the squad’s extraordinary flexibility. Ramon Hendriks headed home almost immediately after entering, while Deniz Undav and Ermedin Demirovic worked together as a front pair later on. Demirovic struck the bar before Badredine Bouanani completed a superb cameo by adding a goal to his earlier assist. That attacking depth might prove one of Hoeneß’s more enjoyable headaches. Undav remains the offensive reference point after producing 25 goals and 12 assists in 45 competitive appearances last season, while El Khannouss, Führich, Demirovic, and €25m addition Dzenan Pejcinovic supply vastly different ways of arranging the spaces around him. The final trip to Fulham provided a reminder that one should probably not spend the entire summer feeling too pleased with oneself. Stuttgart actually beat Fulham 2-0 in a closed-door morning fixture through goals from Chema and Pejcinovic. Undav, El Khannouss, Karazor, Hendriks, Vagnoman, Stergiou, Al-Dakhil, and Lazar Jovanovic were among those used in that game and consequently rested for the public afternoon test. The second Stuttgart side found life considerably harder at Craven Cottage. After an initially open contest, Fulham progressively seized control and eventually won 1-0. Führich and Bouanani struggled to impose themselves in their individual duels, buildup play lacked penetration, and Bredlow required several excellent saves to keep the score respectable. Yet even the defeat supplied perhaps the clearest view of Stuttgart’s newest tactical wrinkle. Nartey repeatedly left right-back and moved into central midfield when Stuttgart possessed the ball. Against the ball, Hoeneß employed man-oriented assignments without initially sending his players all the way forward to press Bernd Leno. It was a far more sophisticated incarnation of the experiment that had begun against Balingen four weeks earlier. The midfield picture remains similarly fluid. Angelo Stiller is still the central reference point, but Prömel, Chema, and captain Atakan Karazor offer three distinctly different partners: Prömel the box-to-box runner, Chema the younger defensive midfielder capable of organizing from deep, and Karazor the safest defensive option. In the end, Stuttgart’s summer produced less of a new tactical identity than an expansion of an already broad one. Hoeneß used back fours, a 4-4-2, different forward pairings, asymmetric flank occupations, a deeper playmaker, and an inverted right-back. A squad strong enough to accommodate a three-man defense remains available as well. Hoeneß has rather a lot of good footballers to fit onto one pitch. Winners from camp, Stuttgart Nikolas Nartey, RB/CM The clearest winner of Stuttgart’s preparation. What began as an emergency solution necessitated by Lorenz Assignon’s shoulder surgery developed into one of the more interesting tactical experiments of the entire summer. Hoeneß used Nartey at right-back from the opening friendly, and the natural midfielder did rather more than simply survive the unfamiliar assignment. He scored against Hollenbach, produced arguably Stuttgart’s best individual performance against Everton – including another goal – and gradually began looking less like a midfielder filling in at full-back than a player capable of actually making the position his own. By the final Fulham test, the experiment had acquired considerably more tactical sophistication. Nartey repeatedly stepped inside from right-back when Stuttgart possessed the ball, effectively adding another midfielder and allowing Hoeneß to create central superiority without sacrificing the back-four starting structure. His left foot and midfield education make the mechanism unusually natural. Assignon’s absence gave Nartey the opportunity. What he did with it ensures that the idea should survive long after the Frenchman returns. The most amazing comeback story continues. Chris Führich, LW/AM Probably Stuttgart’s strongest pure performer across the summer. Führich began preparation by registering a goal and an assist in each of the first three friendlies, repeatedly shredding lower-league opponents down the left. More importantly, the production survived the jump in opposition quality. Against Paris FC, he created both Stuttgart goals and remained the side’s most dangerous attacking player. All of that follows an excellent Rückrunde and leaves Führich entering the season in authoritative form. Führich has spent the summer making a fairly emphatic case that anyone wishing to remove him from the XI needs to furnish the type of argument €1,000 per hour lawyers get paid for. Grischa Prömel, CM So great to see Grischa playing for a traditional club again! He made his presence felt this summer off the scoresheet. Prömel arrived on a free transfer from Hoffenheim and immediately gave Hoeneß something different alongside Angelo Stiller: an experienced box-to-box midfielder capable of covering ground, arriving in advanced areas and supplying considerably more goal threat than Stuttgart usually receive from deeper central positions. His integration was sufficiently smooth that the competition beside Stiller now looks genuinely open. Prömel enters competitive play with a legitimate claim to the second central-midfield position. Chema Andrés, DM/CM A quieter winner, though perhaps one Hoeneß will appreciate more with Champions League rotation looming. Chema received extensive pre-season minutes and demonstrated enough tactical flexibility to operate as the deepest midfielder, drop into central defense when required and contribute further forward. What Chema did accomplish was turn the second midfield position into a deeper discussion. Hoeneß now has four credible central options with notably different profiles: Stiller the playmaking reference, Prömel the runner, Karazor the defensive stabilizer and Chema the young hybrid capable of filling several requirements. Lazar Jovanovic, AM/RW What? The most productive developmental winner and perhaps the strangest one. We all assumed the ink was already dry on a loan out. Jovanovic tore through the opening friendlies with four goals and two assists before scoring again against Paris FC. He remained threatening as the opponent quality increased and repeatedly demonstrated why Stuttgart regard him as an extremely interesting attacking prospect. The author still refuses to believe he can avoid writing the loan piece. Losers from camp, Stuttgart Jeremy Arévalo, CF So much for this. Injury prevented Arévalo from making much of an on-field case this summer, but the larger problem was already apparent before preparation began. His transition from second-division Spanish football to Bundesliga tempo had proven difficult last season, and Stuttgart responded by spending €25m on Dzenan Pejcinovic rather than clearing a pathway for him. Deniz Undav remains the attacking reference, Ermedin Demirovic remains an important senior player for as long as he stays, and Pejcinovic has arrived expecting meaningful minutes immediately. Even the possible Demirovic departure does not automatically rescue Arévalo’s standing. Stuttgart remain open to finding the youngster another solution, and the club’s summer behavior suggests that regular football elsewhere would presently serve him better than fighting for scraps behind several established or extremely expensive forwards. This is less a bad camp than a fairly unmistakable squad-planning demotion. The Ecuadorian international may not even feature for VfB II in the 3. Liga. This begins to look like a horrible misunderstanding. Lorenz Assignon, RB An injury loser with an unwanted side effect: while Assignon rehabilitated the shoulder that will keep him out for the beginning of the season, somebody else discovered his position. Nikolas Nartey began filling in at right-back because Hoeneß needed an emergency solution. By the end of preparation, the emergency solution was scoring goals, defending well and stepping into midfield during possession as part of one of Stuttgart’s most interesting new tactical mechanisms. That does not mean Assignon has permanently lost the job before he has even returned. It does mean he comes back to a considerably different competition than the one he left. Nartey has given Hoeneß a reason to continue the experiment even when necessity no longer demands it. Being injured during pre-season is unfortunate. Being injured while another player accidentally invents a new version of your position is considerably worse. Dan-Axel Zagadou, CB Same story. Different summer. Oh God. Let it end! The author can’t take it anymore! Zagadou actually did something positive enough to make the latest interruption especially irritating: he captained Stuttgart against Paris FC and headed home Führich’s free kick for the second goal. Then came Everton, another injury and another entry in the increasingly depressing catalogue of physical setbacks that have prevented the defender from ever establishing sustained momentum in Stuttgart. The author can’t even bring himself to report on Zagadou’s minutes one more time. Done. Moving on. Tactical scout, Stuttgart There are less stressful ways to begin a new competitive season than travelling to a sold-out Ostseestadion to face a third-division promotion candidate whose supporters have spent the afternoon preparing enough pyrotechnics to alter local weather patterns. Sebastian Hoeneß knew this. He explicitly said beforehand that nobody was handing out beauty prizes in Rostock. Advance. Leave. Preferably retain all functioning limbs. Stuttgart accomplished most of that. The functioning-limbs portion became mildly negotiable after Nikolas Nartey lasted nine minutes and Chris Führich later wandered off with muscular problems. Everything else went rather better. Stuttgart won 4-0, controlled 75 percent of the ball, produced 21 shots and left Dzenan Pejcinovic carrying home the match ball after his first competitive appearance for the club. Lineup–VfB (DFB Pokal) The first competitive answer to Hoeneß’ overflowing-toy-box problem came in a 4-2-3-1. Pejcinovic occupied the highest line, Deniz Undav worked centrally behind him, Führich began from the left and Tiago Tomás from the right. Angelo Stiller partnered Grischa Prömel in midfield. That arrangement immediately clarified something preparation could only suggest. Hoeneß does not necessarily have to choose between a conventional striker and Undav. Pejcinovic can provide the fixed central reference while Undav goes searching for the football wherever he thinks it might be useful. And search he did. Undav repeatedly dropped away from Rostock’s defensive line to collect possession deeper and help initiate attacks. That movement pulled him away from the traditional No. 10 interpretation and closer to the free-ranging connective role that has always suited his intelligence best. Pejcinovic, meanwhile, remained available higher up the pitch, attacking Stiller’s service, pinning defenders and occupying precisely the spaces Undav was vacating. Then the new striker began scoring. The first goal told us considerably more than the final scoreline might suggest. Tiago Tomás anticipated another poor Rostock buildup sequence, stole possession and immediately found Pejcinovic around the top of the box. Seven defenders were clustered nearby. The 21-year-old nevertheless protected the ball in extremely tight space and rolled a precise finish into the bottom corner. This was not a striker being accidentally struck by a rebound somewhere around the six-yard box. Pejcinovic received under pressure, secured the action and finished it himself. The second reinforced both his own qualities and Stuttgart’s collective intentions. Prömel intercepted another poor Rostock buildup pass, Undav took over and supplied Pejcinovic, who used a clever movement to leave his marker sliding in the wrong direction before finishing into the upper corner. Two goals. Two high recoveries. Two immediate vertical attacks before Rostock could properly reconstruct their defensive shape. Pejcinovic’s third was less elaborate and perhaps even more useful for assessing why Stuttgart spent €25m on him. He had barely featured during a deliberately quieter second half, but when Vagnoman advanced and squared from the right, the striker was standing exactly where a striker should stand. One touch. Finish. Hat-trick. Undav’s evening may actually be more important to the longer-term tactical discussion. He did not score. As usual, this writer didn’t care. His pass created Pejcinovic’s second, another perfectly weighted through-ball released Tiago Tomás for the 3-0, and he continued manipulating spaces centrally long after Stuttgart stopped playing at full speed. Hoeneß now possesses the possibility of using one player to occupy defenders and another to interpret everything happening around them. That sounds considerably healthier than asking Undav to simultaneously be the nine, ten, comedian and unofficial club spokesman. Tiago Tomás strengthened his own case as well. His intervention created the opener, he repeatedly attacked defenders directly, forced Unbehaun into an excellent save and then finished Stuttgart’s third. Just as importantly for Hoeneß, he tracked all the way back in the second half to defend against Dajaku. The right-sided role therefore carried considerably more responsibility than waiting outside the box and hoping the ball eventually arrived. Tomás pressed, transitioned, recovered and attacked the final line. Behind them, the Stiller-Prömel pairing produced a lot. The two repeatedly alternated during buildup rather than assigning one player permanently to the deepest position. Prömel’s recovery directly triggered Pejcinovic’s second goal, while Stiller remained the principal distributor and repeatedly looked for higher passes into Undav and the front line. One pre-season experiment received considerably less useful testing. Nartey started at right-back, which in itself matters. Hoeneß trusted his summer revelation with the start. Then his thigh began objecting after only a few minutes and Vagnoman replaced him in the ninth. Whatever conclusions we hoped to draw about Nartey’s inverted role will have to wait. The selection confirmed the hierarchy. The injury removed the tactical sample. There were also some defensive warnings. Rostock created an early three-against-three transition before Stiller recovered, Dajaku later escaped Stuttgart’s high defensive line with a direct pass, and Stiller eventually took a tactical yellow after being beaten in midfield. Bredlow was required to make several legitimate saves. A 4-0 should nevertheless not be transformed into a crisis because the opponent occasionally crossed the halfway line. Rostock produced the first meaningful chance of the second half. Bredlow handled it. Stuttgart continued circulating until a longer passing sequence eventually released Undav to create Tiago Tomás’ goal. Pejcinovic added the fourth later. The ability to lower the temperature of a cup tie before accelerating again matters. Stuttgart’s abundance does not require them to attack with every available footballer simultaneously. Which brings us back to the problem posed at the beginning of this preview. Hoeneß has too many good footballers. Rostock supplied his first serious attempt at organizing them into something coherent. Pejcinovic stayed high. Undav roamed. Tomás supplied the running and defensive work from the right. Führich occupied his familiar left side until injury intervened. Stiller and Prömel shared the central work. The roles were differentiated rather than crowded. Pejcinovic’s hat-trick will understandably dominate the headlines. The more interesting development is that Stuttgart may already have discovered how to use him without forcing Undav somewhere less useful. One competitive match does not solve Hoeneß’ luxury problem. It does make the toy box look even more ridiculous. GGFN  |  Peter Weis