Once again on Sunday, it seemed like a game with the handbrake on for Timo Werner. Generous, but not like a top-class striker: at the start of the second half, the German breaks away on a counterattack, could decisively aim for the goal but instead drifts wide, seems to lose the moment, and delivers a cross to the far post. In the end, he is right, but the goal is scored by someone else – Ousseni Bouda, and the San Jose Earthquakes are perfectly fine with that. The problem is that goal has been missing for Timo since October 30, 2024: an eternity, a symptom of a technical and scoring regression that has abruptly pushed him to the margins of football. But enough is enough. A few minutes later, another counterattack arrives, Werner breaks through again through the center, surpasses a defender, and in frustration blasts it into the net. Drought broken. And perhaps a new beginning is in sight.
“I am very happy,” said the former Chelsea and Leipzig at the end of the 4-1 victory against Los Angeles FC. “It is important for every player on the field to score goals and provide assists, but for strikers even more so: it helps build confidence and earn the respect of the team. Then it’s even more fun when you manage to score a beautiful goal like this. In general, for me, it was simply important to score, to finally feel those emotions again.” It took an MLS afternoon, while in Germany his name now echoes like that of a disappeared figure in football. Few would have imagined such a trajectory just some time ago.
Indeed, Werner is not a striker at the end of his career, in theory: he has just turned 30, and he has gotten back into shape physically. He could still have a lot ahead of him in football. Yet he will have to earn it back piece by piece, because the negative spiral of these years leaves significant traces. We mentioned October 2024: 18 months ago, Timo scored his last goal before today, wearing the Tottenham shirt in a League Cup match against Manchester City. Then nothing, not even during the most recent chapter of his experience at Leipzig – the club that made him great. To find the last season finished in double figures, you have to rewind the tape back to 2022/23: 16 goals with the Red Bull Germans. And the last league with the same outcome – in fact better, at the time overwhelming – was even the Bundesliga 2019/2020. When Werner was 24 years old.
It is clear that something has gone wrong in the meantime. At the end of that season, Timo’s qualities were on everyone’s lips in Europe: a fast, modern, selfless striker – around a hundred assists in his career remain a significant haul – and quick with the ball at his feet. Between Leipzig and the German national team, he was doing great things. Many were looking for him, and Chelsea secured him for 53 million euros. Quite a lot, but at that moment it didn’t seem too much. However, it happens that Werner proves to be a bit lightweight for the Premier League, from 34 goals the previous year he plunges to 12 – still the top scorer for the Blues – but even quietly he becomes one of the protagonists of Tuchel’s team that crowned champions of Europe in May. Impossible to call it a negative season, but the first signs of a decline that from then on – aided by a long series of injuries – become progressive and relentless were already visible.
The second year at Chelsea is a step back, the following year he returns to Leipzig as a faded copy of the scorer he once was, and the loan to Tottenham does not revitalize him. His last appearance with Germany, still, dates back to March 2023. In this season, back in Germany, he played sparingly, and in January he was signed by the San Jose Earthquakes: a clear diminutio for the striker’s career, but new air was needed, new football. And a coach who would put him at the center of the project: “Timo will be a special player for us,” said Bruce Arena, the experienced technical guide of San Jose with a fruitful past as the US national team coach from ’98 to 2006. “It will still take some time before he regains his form and rhythm, but he is an exceptional champion. He will be a great reinforcement.” For now, his score in MLS says one goal and three assists in five appearances: the best of the last two years. And as Timo said, having broken the drought, it’s time to think about the most important thing: to start having fun again. The ball is waiting for him there.