From £50m Moves to MLS Banishment at 29 - The Rise and Fall of Timo Werner

From £50m Moves to MLS Banishment at 29 - The Rise and Fall of Timo Werner

The year is 2016 and RB Leipzig have signed a 20-year-old German striker from VfB Stuttgart for €10 million who had only at that point only scored 14 goals in the Bundesliga.

However, after that first season he had paid it all back: 21 goals and 5 assists in 32 matches in his first season, followed by another 21 goals and 9 assists in his next season. Suddenly Leipzig no longer had a talented young forward on their hands but instead had one of the best strikers in the world. 2 seasons later and 73 goal contributions later, you have a big choice on your hands: what to do with him?

With interest from many top teams in Europe, Werner had made his choice to leave and Leipzig would agree to this and between Chelsea and Liverpool, he would pick the Pride of London and play in blue. For €53 million Chelsea thought they had signed a world beater, someone to end the striker curse, but no, that was the beginning of the end. After a season with more goal contributions than games, he would never see those heights again. 6 and a half seasons later and he has moved to the MLS. So, what has happened to Timo Werner?

Timo Werner’s Early Years

Werner joined Stuttgart’s academy in 2002 and would find success very quickly, climbing the ranks and playing games for the U19 team at just the age of 16, where he would score 24 goals. He showed his natural ability to finish and his movement and athletic ability very quickly and this allowed him to set himself apart from other players around him. These factors would allow him to finally move up from the academy into the first team in 2016.

He would break further records, such as youngest ever player and youngest ever goal scorer, something that would grab attention across Europe and he would grab even more eyes a few years later with the main club seeing his potential being Bundesliga rival RB Leipzig, who would buy him, having faith in the young forward and he would pay that faith back with 95 goals in the 4 seasons he would be with them.

His ability to play across the front 3 as well as through the middle made him one of the most important players for Leipzig and would allow them to start to build a team around him, as he was clearly their best player at the time. After signing a contract extension in 2019, Leipzig fans believed he would be staying for several years; however, just a year later, he would leave for London.

The Beginning of the End of Timo Werner

After joining Chelsea, the striker would struggle to find his form with just 12 goals and 11 assists in his first season. It had seemed that the Premier League and English media were proving to be a challenge that Werner wasn’t completely ready for. Looking at it now, many players moving from the Bundesliga to the Premier League have tended to struggle, however, Werner was a different calibre and with the amount of top teams’ interest in him, people expected a lot more from him.

Looking at his numbers, the main focus often goes to the fact that he struggled to finish his chances, scoring almost half the goals his xG created and this would be a theme that would happen all season with him often being highlighted as the player who missed the most big chances. His confidence would be knocked by this and with the increased coverage and social media use, his misses and issues would be highlighted even more than normal, causing his confidence to hit rock bottom and him to struggle to truly find himself.

What a goal line clearance from Timo Werner pic.twitter.com/3YSaqrzLra

— 𝙍𝙞𝙘𝙤 (@UTDRico8) July 4, 2024

Halfway through the season, many fans believed that his fortunes would change as the managers would change, with Frank Lampard getting sacked and replaced with German manager Thomas Tuchel; however, unfortunately for Werner, his fortunes would not change, although he did play a large part in Chelsea’s success that season, scoring in the Champions League semi-final against Real Madrid. He would end this season as a champion of Europe; however, he himself wouldn’t be happy with his individual season and Chelsea would also hold this view.

While Chelsea did win the Champions League with Werner as their striker, they would look to sign another striker, and that would introduce Werner’s competition, recent Serie A winner Romelu Lukaku. Lukaku would immediately take that striker spot and this would limit Werner’s time on the pitch, playing only 21 league matches, starting just 15 of those, where he would only add 4 more goals to his Chelsea tally. After this season both Werner and Chelsea would cut their losses, and he would leave back for Germany to find his true form again.

In his first season back in Germany, he looked to be back to his old self, scoring 16 goals and getting 5 assists in 40 matches; however, that was a short-lived belief, as the next season he would play just 14 matches, scoring 2 goals before being sent out on loan back to London, this time for Spurs.

In those 6 months at Spurs originally, he would play just another 14 matches and score 2 goals, ending the season with 4 goals in 28 matches. This would only get worse for the 28-year-old, as he would end the next season with just a single goal in 27 matches and with many Spurs fans wanting him gone from the club and that’s what would happen. He would arrive back in Germany far ahead of the 2025/26 season and would touch the pitch for just 13 minutes over 3 games until now. It was announced yesterday that at just 29 years old, Werner would be leaving Europe behind and would join the San Jose Earthquakes in the MLS.

🚨🇺🇸 Timo Werner to San Jose Earthquakes, here we go! Deal in place for the German striker to try new chapter in MLS.

Werner leaves Leipzig and will sign at San Jose in the next days after verbal agreement reached today, as @tombogert reports.

It will be a permanent deal. pic.twitter.com/yzgdF7q9rm

— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) January 12, 2026

So, What Happened to One of Europe’s Best Strikers?

There are many reasons behind the fall of Werner, with one of the most commonly accepted and talked about ones being his loss of confidence. We see many players who have success, play well and thrive when they are given confidence. However, as soon as that confidence is taken away, either from a run of poor form or an injury, they can often struggle to find that form again and Werner seems to be one of those players who lost his confidence. The increased viewership and media attention in the English top flight put more focus on his shortcomings than ever before and it seems that he has never been able to bounce back from that, ultimately ending his career at the top level.