A year ago, Maximilian Mittelstädt sat on the bench at Hertha BSC and was ultimately relegated from the Bundesliga with the Berliners. Now he is about to make his debut in the Champions League and has secured a place in the European Championship squad. One year – things are progressing tremendously.
The Neue Deutsche Welle is currently sweeping across German football as a presumably short-term fad. From the rich collection, not only a goal anthem should be found, but also a song for every player who took part in the friendly matches against France and the Netherlands.
For Maximilian Mittelstädt, the hit would be fitting for a band that has its roots in punk and is only considered part of the New German Wave because “One Year – It Goes Forward” was sung in German and it has little to do with punk. It’s not the lyrics, but just the title of the band Fehlfarben that fits Mittelstädt well, but it hits the spot.
March 2023 – with Hertha in a relegation battle
When the Bundesliga went into the international break in March 2023, during which the selection of the German Football Association (DFB) under national coach Hansi Flick won 2-0 against Peru and lost 2-3 against Belgium, Mittelstädt was stuck with Hertha BSC Bundesliga in a relegation battle.
When the league came out of the break, it stayed that way, and Mittelstädt was left with the realization that there was hardly any room for him in the weak Berlin team. In the first four Bundesliga games in April, Mittelstädt played zero minutes, although he was neither suspended nor injured.
Hertha was relegated, Maximilian Mittelstädt, with a season record of 17 appearances with ten substitutions and for a fixed transfer fee of half a million euros, moved to VfB Stuttgart, who had held the top class in the relegation against HSV.
March 2024 – with Stuttgart on course for the Champions League
When the Bundesliga went into the international break in March 2024, after 24 of 26 possible appearances with eight substitutions, Mittelstädt steered VfB on course for the Champions League, a competition in which he had never played.
During the international win in France, Mittelstädt made the acquaintance of the extremely fast and tricky Ousmane Dembélé, and he seemed overwhelmed at times. For national coach Julian Nagelsmann, however, there was no question of changing the starting eleven for the second test in Frankfurt against the Netherlands, and so Maximilian Mittelstädt started again in the role of left defender, which has been a problem position for years. He made a bad pass in the fourth minute that led to 0-1, and it seemed as if the problem remained.
EM promise from Nagelsmann
In the eleventh minute, however, Mittelstädt shot the ball into the corner from a good 16 meters to equalize, and after that he played very solidly to well, so that the national coach raved: “Outstanding.” However, this referred even more to the “top guy” Maximilian Mittelstädt, who remained a “completely normal guy”, although at the age of 27 he had not only become a national player, but also received a promise from Nagelsmann to be in the squad for to be nominated for the European Championships.
One year – things are progressing tremendously.
However, there are enough examples in the recent history of the national team that players are quickly declared to be the medium-term solution to a positional problem. For the left defender, this applies to Nico Schulz and Robin Gosens.
In recent years, however, people have often continued to try and change things without any prospect of improvement. In this respect, it might be the right strategy for the national coach to now commit to someone and express their trust in him.
“I didn’t let the mistake unsettle me, I just kept playing my game and I’m now very happy about the goal and the victory, which is extremely good for us and will give us momentum for the tasks ahead,” said Mittelstädt in Frankfurt after the game Success against the Netherlands. His next task is to remove the left side of the back four from the list of problem positions.
