JUN 25, 2017Scores his first senior
goals for his country,
with two against
Cameroon in the
Confederations Cup.
JUN 17, 2018
Plays in the World
Cup for the first time
as Germany lose
1-0 to Mexico.NOV 23, 2019
Becomes the
youngest player
to make 200
Bundesliga
appearances.converted the resulting spot-kick,
claimed at first that he had not
conned the referee into believing that
Schalke goalkeeper Ralf Fahrmann had
brought him down. The following day,
he confessed and apologised, but the
damage was done.
For months on end he was the nation’s
favourite felon, whistled and jeered
wherever he went. He even came in for
a hotter-than-hell reception from fans
of the national side, who jeered him
when coming on as a substitute in a
World Cup tie against San Marino in
Nuremberg in June 2017.
“All I could do was to swallow it and
hope that time would heal the wounds,”
he told Kicker. “One thing I can say: I’ve
learnt my lesson from this business. I will
be stronger for it going forward.
“I’ve had a lot of abuse and still scored
my goals. I’ve zoned it out and carried
on playing my game.”
He faced an entirely different type of
problem during RB’s Champions League
face-off with Besiktas of Turkey in the
autumn of 2017. Visibly discomforted
by the sonic boom noise of the Istanbul
crowd he asked to be withdrawn after
only 30 minutes. Apparently he had
been suffering
with vertigo.
“I’ve neverknown such an atmosphere in my life,”
he explained after a 2-0 defeat for the
Roten Bullen. “I could not focus on the
match. I asked for some earplugs and it
did not help either. I still don’t feel well.”
Just as well then that he is so single-
minded and grounded. Frieder Schrof,
Stuttgart’s youth-system guru, knows the
striker as well as anyone and only has
praise for his attitude and enthusiasm
for his craft, telling Stuttgarter Zeitung
newspaper: “Timo always shows good
character and mentality. You see it when
he goes hunting for the ball. For him,
there’s no such thing as too many sprints
or a run which is too long.
“He’s been a professional for six years
and often people forget that he needs
more time to develop into an established
pro. Sometimes his youthful friskiness
can come to the surface and he has to
control that.”
Happy to describe Werner as a
“decent, well-behaved boy who is results
orientated”, Schrof attributes much of
the youngster’s success to his mother,
Sabine Werner, and her now estranged
husband, Gunther Schuh.
Schrof calls the pair “down to earth
and sensible” and makes no secret of his
belief that Werner is cut from the same
cloth. His parents certainly did a good
job. Keen for him to have an academicBoot he picked up, receiving the award
from Diego Maradona no less, was
thoroughly deserved.
Werner, who appeared in all three of
Germany’s matches in their disastrous
World Cup 2018 campaign, is exactly
what Low looks for in an attacker: the
goals, the substantial deep threat, the
rip-roaring pace, the comfort in high-
tempo matchplay. Yet he still has some
way to go to nail down an automatic
place in the starting XI. Low has a
weakness for “false strikers” and has
toyed with using winger Gnabry in such
a role.
Given his flair for goals – 88 for RB
Leipzig in the last four seasons – and
the transfer-market fever he generates,
it is rather surprising that his popularity
levels in Germany are not the most
flattering. Like all RB players he has to
contend with the fact that large swathes
of the German football public cannot
abide the Leipzig outfit, regarding the
whole Red Bull operation as a money-
grabbing exercise. In this black-or-
white world, RB Leipzig are looked
at as mercenaries, as agents of an
anti-tradition agenda. This is the cross
Werner and his team-mates must bear.
In terms of fair play and PR, he has
let himself down on occasion, notably
when clearly diving for a penalty in RB’s
2-1 Bundesliga win over Schalke in
December 2016. Werner, who himself
Timo Werner
Reputation...going to ground against Schalke
Golden Boot...
receiving his award
from Diego Maradona“I’ve had a lot of abuse and still
scored my goals. I’ve zoned it out
and carried on playing my game”
Facing up to criticism