A stunning 4-2 victory at Bayer Leverkusen on October 31 gave VfB Stuttgart a much-needed lift, moving the club up to 10th in the Bundesliga table with nine points from eight games. The win offered a sharp contrast to the miserable run that preceded it, which included a humiliating 2-3 home defeat to then-pointless Borussia Mönchengladbach and a 0-1 loss to Hamburg. Those results had left Stuttgart as low as 15th and triggered a sharp internal response from coach Sebastian Hoeneß, who intensified training, began calling out individual errors in front of the full squad, and made clear that no starting place was guaranteed.

Running alongside the team's turbulent league form is the growing debate over captain Deniz Undav. The 30-year-old striker went seven Bundesliga games without a goal before the Leverkusen match, and the weight of the armband appears to have affected him. Lothar Matthäus said publicly that Undav had lost his natural ease and was thinking too much, while Matthias Sammer had earlier questioned whether he was the right profile for the captaincy role. Both pundits stopped short of calling for the armband to be removed, but the conversation has added pressure to a player who was expected to lead Stuttgart's attack this season.

Attention now turns to Tuesday's Champions League away fixture against Galatasaray at the Rams Global Stadyumu in Istanbul, where Stuttgart will look to build on their seven points already accumulated in Europe's top competition.