Timo Werner career reflections on MLS San José Earthquakes and RB Leipzig, Digi Mart USA News: Timo Werner (30) is having a strong run in the United States. Playing for MLS club San José Earthquakes since the winter, he has 22 competitive appearances with six goals and seven assists, and the club has secured a place in the championship playoffs.
In the US podcast “The Late Run,” the striker spoke about his career in fluent English. Looking back at his first spell at Bundesliga club RB Leipzig (2016–2020), he said it was a shame the team never won a league title.
“We won the cup, but we never won the championship. We really had an incredible team.
I had great teammates, and it is nice to see how they have developed,” Werner said, naming Dani Olmo, Dayot Upamecano, Ibrahima Konaté and Dominik Szoboszlai.
Asked why Leipzig fell short of the title, Werner pointed to inexperience. “We were a very young team, full of energy and quality, but in decisive moments we sometimes made the wrong decisions.” He added that the team rose to the occasion against Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund but often struggled in games that looked easier on paper.
“Bayern just do it: they travel somewhere, win 5-0, travel home, and that is it, three points in the bag.”
Werner also recalled the 2019 Champions League round of 16, when Leipzig eliminated Tottenham Hotspur with a 3-0 and 1-0 result across the two legs. “I remember traveling to London, to their new stadium.
It was an incredible feeling to arrive there. We almost felt like a youth team on a city trip to London.
Our families were there too, and those are moments you never forget.”
On what he is most proud of, Werner said his goals, international appearances and Champions League games are important, but he is proudest of enduring difficult phases. “I sat at home and was really, really down.
I asked myself, ‘What the hell? No matter which stadium I go to, I get booed everywhere.’ They sang songs about me and kept coming up with things.
It was really hard. In no city I visited could I stay in peace, because they followed me everywhere.” He stressed that he never gave up and kept returning to the pitch knowing that 60,000 or 70,000 fans might be booing him.
Werner also commented on Germany’s national team, for which he has scored 24 goals in 57 matches. He said the team now has a good coach but has never fully clicked, and that other countries’ generations may have been better.
He noted that Germany’s generation was strong from 2010 to 2018, but that every era ends, and that a rebuild is now needed. He said the gaps between German World Cup titles were often 20 to 25 years and that the country has had some bad luck and may have set an unrealistic expectation that it must always be at the top.
He said he welcomes the new generation and hopes it can do even better than his own.
