Five DFB stars from VfB Stuttgart are affected! Julian Nagelsmann's next decision on the World Cup squad revealed

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 joined the most recent training camp only as a late replacement for the injured Felix Nmecha and Aleksandar Pavlovic. "He's an outstanding footballer with huge potential and consistently good performances, but he's up against Pavlo, whom I simply see as a tad ahead of him," the national coach 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 went on to start 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 2022 squad—Maximilian Mittelstädt and Chris Führich—will not travel to North America with the DFB party. 

Mittelstädt had remained part of the extended first-team squad both during and after the European Championship, but lost his place 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 replacement for the March training camps. Against Ghana, he made his first international appearance 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. Nagelsmann, however, has evidently reached a different conclusion.

Another VfB regular remains under threat: according to the Abendzeitung, Manuel Neuer's impending return could yet oust Alexander Nübel, given their reported uneasy relationship from their Bayern days.