Stuttgart's season is under real pressure. Three points from four Bundesliga games leaves them 15th in the table, and the club's immediate future is clouded by a looming squad crisis that could reshape the team entirely. As kicker reports, eight players including Angelo Stiller, Chris Führich, Maximilian Mittelstädt and Ermedin Demirovic all have contracts expiring in 2028, and renewing all of them would blow the wage budget. With the club's personnel costs rising from 105 million to 163 million euros over three years, sporting director Fabian Wohlgemuth faces difficult decisions. Talks with most of those players are on hold until at least January, when the winter window will also reveal whether Stuttgart can realistically challenge for European football again.

On the pitch, new signing Dzenan Pejcinovic has struggled to build on a promising start. The 21-year-old, who cost 25 million euros from Wolfsburg and became the club's second most expensive signing ever, told kicker he is going through a difficult goalscoring run after an impressive DFB-Pokal debut. His form dip was enough for Germany head coach Jürgen Klopp to leave him out of the Nations League squad. The club's next test comes Saturday at Paderborn in the Bundesliga, a match Stuttgart need to use to arrest a slide that is making an already complicated planning situation feel considerably more urgent.