Julian Nagelsmann insists he did not advise Nick Woltemade against joining Bayern Munich, though he has suggested the forward’s move to Newcastle United could boost his hopes of representing Germany at the World Cup.

Woltemade won his first two senior caps in June, starting in their Nations League semi-final defeat to Portugal and the third-place play-off against France.

He scored 17 goals in all competitions for Stuttgart last season, with 12 of those coming in the Bundesliga and the other five in the DFL-Pokal, as VfB won their first major trophy in 18 years.

Woltemade, along with former Brentford forward Yoane Wissa, is now expected to fill the boots of Alexander Isak at Newcastle, having moved to Tyneside in a €80m (£69m) switch.

The 23-year-old was strongly linked with Bayern before Newcastle approached Stuttgart, and it was believed Germany boss Nagelsmann did not approve of that potential transfer.

Speaking at a press conference ahead of Thursday’s World Cup qualifier in Slovakia, Nagelsmann said Woltemade could have joined Bayern, though admitted that may have harmed his World Cup prospects.

“I think it’s unfortunate on all sides that everything was played out so publicly with Bayern. Of course, I gave him some advice,” Nagelsmann said.

“I didn’t say where he should move, I don’t do that. But I told him that players have to play [regularly].

“I didn’t consider a few of the summer transfers to be entirely fortunate for us, because some players go from 100% playing time to 15%.

“That doesn’t do me much good as a national coach. I told Nick he was welcome to move to Bayern if he wanted to.

“But players should also be clear that with 25% playing time, things would be tight for them for the World Cup.”

Germany’s 2014 World Cup-winning midfielder Toni Kroos, meanwhile, was somewhat surprised to see Woltemade buck the trend of homegrown players choosing Bayern.

“If you take a closer look, it’s not so surprising, because this Isak thing had been going on for a long time, and he didn’t want to play there anymore,” Kroos said on his podcast Einfach mal Luppen.

“The fact that Newcastle would then look at the market to see what strikers were available was also not surprising. What surprises me is that he actually went there, because we read he was definitely going to Bayern.”

After facing Slovakia, Germany take on Northern Ireland in Koln on Sunday. Their Group A campaign is yet to get underway, with Luxembourg the other team in their pool.