A coach looked at an 11-year-old boy and told him to find another club: “we need big players, you’re too fat”. That boy was Deniz Undav, and that phrase could have ended his career before it began.
Today, at 29, Undav is a striker for Stuttgart and the top scorer for the German national team at the 2026 World Cup, with 3 goals in the tournament. But the road was not easy: he even worked 8 hours a day as an operator in a factory, earning just 140 euros from football.
Being overweight followed him even at the elite level. He said that in weeks without goals he stopped eating kebab, and that he gave up chocolate and energy drinks. Today it is his wife Tanja who watches every meal 🍫🚫. The couple married in 2021 in Achim, near Bremen, and had their first daughter in 2024. The boy who was rejected for ‘eating too much’ led Germany’s attack at the World Cup.