Professionals, 22. May 2025
Following VfB Stuttgart’s recent 3-2 victory in Leipzig to round out the Bundesliga season, Deniz Undav, Ermedin Demirovic and Nick Woltemade linked arms as they walked towards the away fans together with huge smiles on their faces.
Each of the forwards had found the target in the match as Sebastian Hoeneß’s charges continued to hit their stride ahead of the DFB Cup final.
The last, and arguably most important, game of the season arrives on Saturday at 20:00 CEST as VfB take on Arminia Bielefeld. And the team’s trio of forwards could prove to be the difference.
“We can be dangerous at any given moment”
“We’re all competitive and everyone wants to be in the starting line-up,” said Demirovic, before adding what makes the attacking trident so special: “We know that we can be dangerous at any given moment and can make our mark so that we’re successful as a team.”
One of the reasons behind their success is that Undav, now at the end of his second season at VfB, and Demirovic and Woltemade, who were both signed in summer 2024, work for and with each other for the benefit of the team.
“We’ve learned a lot this season,” said Undav, who scored nine Bundesliga goals in 2024/25. “We managed to integrate the new players into our attacking patterns increasingly well. We’re able to link up and not just play long balls.”
For ‘Medo’, as Demirovic is known by his team-mates, that was one of the underlying reasons for his move to VfB: “My game has become more complete because I’ve developed in terms of linking up.” That is reflected in his 15-goal haul for the season, equalling his personal best set the previous year.
Undav on Bielefeld:
“You can be lucky maybe once or twice, but it’s not luck if you do it four times,” said Undav. “Arminia have implemented their playing style.”
Stronger after setbacks
Woltemade is living proof that it is possible to recover from disappointments. In the team’s penultimate away game of the season at FC St. Pauli, the forward shouldered responsibility by taking a penalty, only to miss from the spot.
Rather than folding, the 23-year-old’s team-mates encouraged him to keep going, helping him to quickly clear his head. It paid dividends, as Woltemade went on to score the only goal of the game in the 89th minute.
“It was such a weight off my shoulders when I managed to score just before the end,” he said afterwards. His total tally of 12 Bundesliga goals across the season is evidence of his rapid development.
Now VfB’s front line are approaching the biggest game of their careers to date: the DFB Cup final at the Olympiastadion, with 75,000 fans in the terraces and millions more watching on television.
Opponents Bielefeld ended the 2024/25 campaign as third-division champions, thereby earning promotion to Bundesliga 2. “We’re not underestimating Bielefeld in the slightest, they’re not in the final by accident,” said Undav, before touching on the fact that Arminia knocked out four top-flight sides en route to the showpiece in Berlin.
“You can be lucky maybe once or twice, but it’s not luck if you do it four times. Arminia have implemented their playing style and they’ll be very aggressive in the final as well.”
The forward is no doubt that it is the biggest game of his career so far: “Before this it was the Champions League away game at Real Madrid. Our shared objective is to get our hands on the trophy and to celebrate with our supporters.”
And another photo of him, Demirovic and Woltemade linking arms and drinking in the atmosphere with the fans would not go amiss either.
