Timo Werner: San Jose's new centerpiece takes MLS by storm | OneFootball

By Charles Boehm

Timo Werner was refreshingly honest about the learning curve after his San Jose Earthquakes debut.

“I'm still learning all the names of the staff, the team,” he admitted to Apple TV after his substitute appearance in the Quakes’ Matchday 2 win over Atlanta United, “and it was tough coming from an 11-hour flight. But I had enough time to rest in Germany over the last few weeks and months. So it was time to get starting, to come to the team, to have fun with them together.”

That newness – a factor of the usual paperwork, as well as his wife Paula giving birth to their first child last month – didn’t stop him from playing the game-clinching assist. He replicated that feat last weekend in another supersub cameo, this time teeing up Ousseni Bouda for the only goal of a 1-0 cross-country away win over Philadelphia.

Nor, explained Bouda, has it kept him from fitting in quickly as one of the guys, despite his elite pedigree.

“He's such an experienced player and also such a great guy,” said the Burkina Faso international of Werner with a smile. “He's come in the locker room, and it already feels like he's been here for, like, two years already. So we're happy to have him. We're happy to have his experience, and obviously I'm happy about the connection that we're starting to build. So hopefully we can continue that.”

Timo Time

Their new star has barely unpacked his bags, and the Quakes are top of the table with an unblemished 3W-0L-0D record as they prepare to host Seattle Sounders FC in Matchday 4's Sunday Night Soccer presented by Continental Tire showdown at PayPal Park (7 pm ET | Apple TV).

Bruce Arena would likely be the first to point out that it’s early to declare this landmark Designated Player signing a success. Then again, the Quakes’ coach and sporting director said all along Werner would be a “home run,” even in the face of widespread doubt among observers skeptical that a player out of favor and chained to the bench at RB Leipzig for months could be a difference-maker on these shores.

“His mentality. He’s a good professional. He has the physical attributes that are good in this league. And he's very bright, a very intelligent guy,” Arena told MLSsoccer.com in a wide-ranging preseason sitdown in Rancho Mirage, California. “His wife's familiar with the US, having gone to high school here for a year, so she knows the US a little bit, and they can make the transition pretty easy.

“Germans are very good here. They're bilingual, which I think is a real plus as well. When you bring in international players that speak English, it's a plus. He has that as well. And obviously, he's been a very good player; he's scored well over 100 goals in his career. So that seems to me to be a decent bit.”

DP tradition

That droll understatement with a twist of sarcasm is vintage Bruce, and he’s earned it. ‘Seen it all’ is an overused phrase, though when it comes to Arena and Major League Soccer, it usually applies – often literally.

No one’s won more MLS Cups, or Supporters’ Shields, or Sigi Schmid MLS Coach of the Year awards, or matches, across five different clubs. The victory over Philly was his 276th career regular-season win, 36 ahead of second-placed Schmid and more than double that of his closest pursuer in the active coaching ranks, Houston's Ben Olsen.

Along the way, he’s signed some pretty decent DPs.

“Timo reminded me a little bit of Juan Pablo Ángel,” explained Arena. “I brought him to [Red Bull] New York, and then Robbie [Keane], all the time I followed him, and got lucky to bring him to LA [Galaxy].

“Following Timo in his years with Chelsea and Tottenham, I thought he was talented, would be very good in the league. And when I got to meet him, I thought he was a perfect fit for us. They're all different, those three players and all, but I think he can have an impact with our club.”

Ángel made MLS Best XI and led RBNY to the 2008 MLS Cup final. Keane won three league titles and a Shield, and was league MVP and a four-time Best XI honoree with the Galaxy.

Arena knows these are lofty comparisons. He’s as adept as anyone at balancing high expectations with care and support, on the pitch and off it.

“He has to be a big piece,” Arena said of Werner. “He's got to make the adjustment, like every international player has. The transition, sometimes it's real quick and other times it's real slow. Hopefully, his is quick. Robbie Keane arrived in LA in the morning and played that night – and probably had a few beers afterwards as well. Robbie's a little unique.

“So everyone's different. So we'll see how Timo makes the transition.”

MLS move

It’s vital to note how the very factor which injects uncertainty into the Werner gambit – the reality that he’d played a scant 13 minutes in the Bundesliga this season before crossing the Atlantic – also provides potent fuel for him.

“It's not a secret that I have a tough time the last six months,” Werner, a UEFA Champions League and FIFA Club World Cup winner with Chelsea, told reporters when he signed in late January. “To not be involved in a team like you wanted to be involved in a football team, and not doing that what you enjoyed over the last 14, 15, years – you want to go back in this business, and you want to go back in the daily work, to work every day in the pitch, with the aim to play on the weekend, winning trophies, winning games, winning everything.

“That’s what was motivating me to say, yeah, I think it's the right time to make a step,” he added. “It was a difficult time. I never experienced something like that in my career.”

He’d come very close to joining RBNY last summer before ultimately staying at Leipzig. By the time San Jose called, the calculus changed. It helped that he got a strong reference from former Spurs teammate Son Heung-Min.

“Of course, I spoke to Sonny. We became good friends at Tottenham,” explained Werner. “We had some good conversations about different things, but I knew when he went to LAFC; he told me before. So yeah, it was really interesting to see that he goes and makes this move. But also, after it got announced, he texted me straight away and said, ‘Welcome to MLS.’

“I'm really looking forward to play against him. I think there will be a good matchup.”

New San Jose standard

With his quality and global profile, Werner inevitably became the poster child of Arena’s renovation project on arrival. He’s still just one facet of a wider overhaul process at multiple levels of a struggling club that have missed out on the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs four of the last five seasons and haven't won a postseason game since 2012.

Arena engineered a 20-point turnaround in his first year in charge, yet the Quakes still fell agonizingly short of qualification, missing the Western Conference’s final berth on the wins tiebreaker.

“This is a different challenge than anything I've had,” said Arena. “When I came in, I saw an organization that is not prepared to win. It's not a priority, and I think we're making that better. I didn't come to San Jose just to lose soccer games.”

When Werner signed in January, Arena ticked off a list of areas in which ownership have invested in upgrades, from the German himself to the team dining hall and even the playing surfaces the team trains and plays on.

“I think they've been pretty stagnant over a number of years, and sometimes accept mediocrity. So you've got to inspire them to try to achieve more,” he told MLSsoccer.com of his Quakes culture shift. “What's the point in showing up to work every day to just be average, you know? So in a way, maybe I can have some leadership value in that regard, and try to motivate people to be as good as they can be in their positions. That's not only downstairs in the building, it's upstairs as well, from sales to marketing to how you run everything, to facilities, all those things add up.

“Good clubs have all of that stuff, so we're learning to do that better.”

Now San Jose are leading or co-leading the league in expected goals (7.55), goals against (0) and clean sheets (3), among other statistics, and they’ve done so with a heavily domestic lineup, too, much of it acquired via the often-overlooked MLS SuperDraft.

Sunday’s visit from the Sounders, an established powerhouse with a packed trophy cabinet, should provide a useful barometer for the Quakes’ budding resurgence.

“We have to be patient, but we have enough quality that I think we're going to be a very competitive team this year,” said Arena. “And Timo is going to play an important role in that.”

Match Trailer | San Jose Earthquakes host Seattle Sounders