Maximilian Mittelstädt

Key strength: Pace and recovery

Overlapping full-back

In a Bundesliga season where VfB Stuttgart have defied expectations to sit fourth in the table, Maximilian Mittelstädt has emerged as their most improbable hero. While their recent form (DWDDL) reveals a team grappling for consistency, the 29-year-old German international has been a beacon of reliability, racking up 3,015 minutes across 42 appearances—a testament to both his durability and Sebastian Hoeneß's trust in his overlapping brilliance. Mittelstädt's numbers tell a story of a modern full-back rewriting positional conventions: 5 goals and 6 assists while wearing the number 7 jersey typically reserved for fleet-footed wingers. His modest 55 pace rating belies his actual impact—65 defending and 60 physical stats translate into relentless recovery runs and positional intelligence that paper over any raw speed deficit. Remarkably, he's picked up just three yellow cards across an entire campaign of marauding forward runs—discipline bordering on the miraculous. Valued at €18m, Mittelstädt represents Stuttgart's shrewdest asset: a left-back who attacks like a winger and defends with the composure of a veteran center-half, carrying Stuttgart's unlikely European charge on tireless German-engineered legs.