10 Players to Watch at the 2018 World Cup

Group F: Timo Werner

Country: Germany

Club Team: RB Leipzig

Age: 22

World Cup history is riddled with stories of excellent German strikers. For the past decade and a half, that striker was Miroslav Klose, who holds the record for most goals in World Cup history with 16. Now, for the first time since the 1998 World Cup, Klose is not in the German squad. While Germany are certainly not short of options to replace him, manager Joachim Low elected to leave the trio of strikers who played the most minutes in the qualifying stages off the final roster -- instead including Timo Werner.

Werner performed well for Germany last summer at the Confederations Cup, tying three other German players for the most goals in the tournament and winning the Golden Boot. In the Bundesliga, he has been exceptional for RB Leipzig, scoring 34 total goals over his last two seasons.

He certainly has the ability to pick up the mantle of Germany's starting striker and lead them in Russia, but it remains to be seen if the stage will be too big for him at only 22 years of age. Working in his favor is the absurdly talented teammates he will be surrounded by. Germany's midfield is arguably the best in the world, and the quality of service they are able to provide gives Werner an outside shot of winning the Golden Boot.

Expectations will be high, but if Werner rises to the challenge and meets them, he will add his name to the long list of German strikers who have excelled at the World Cup. Nothing short of a repeat title will be good enough for the Germans, and our metrics give Germany an 8.74% chance -- the fourth-best odds -- of doing just that.

What to Expect: