Kai Havertz: From Champions League Heartbreak to Premier League Triumph

Kai Havertz remembers the silence first.

Not in the dressing room in Budapest, where the noise of a lost Champions League final still rang in his ears, but in his own head. Arsenal had just seen the biggest prize in club football torn from them in the cruellest way. His early goal against Paris Saint-Germain had looked enough for almost an hour; it ended up as a footnote to heartbreak.

And yet, less than 24 hours later, he was due on an open-top bus, parading the Premier League trophy through Islington.

“To be honest, it was tough,” he says. “After the match, I initially thought we would call the whole thing off. By the next morning, things looked different.”

By then, north London had made the decision for them. The streets were flooded with red, with noise, with 22 years of bottled‑up longing finally let loose. The contradiction of the moment – Champions League despair, Premier League ecstasy – dissolved in a sea of flags and flares.

“We had a huge season behind us,” Havertz says. “The club had gone 22 years without a league title so that had to be celebrated properly with the fans. I have to say I’ve never experienced anything like it. So many people on the streets, so many supporting us. It ranks among my top three experiences as a professional.”

Now he is hunting a fourth.

From Budapest to Winston: a reset with Germany

Havertz is speaking at Germany’s World Cup base in Winston, North Carolina, a plush, secluded camp where the mood is noticeably lighter than at recent tournaments. Two straight group-stage exits – 2018 and 2022 – had weighed heavily on this generation. This time, they have already secured top spot in Group E.

He remembers Qatar all too well. Two goals against Costa Rica, a personal rescue act that still ended in failure.

“Qatar was anything but successful for us as a team and for me personally,” he says. “There’s a different energy in our squad now. I was quickly convinced that things would go better this year. We knew we had a duty not to fail early on again. We are Germany. But now the tournament is really just beginning.”

Nobody is dancing around the Graylyn Estate, the castle-like complex that serves as their base. A demolition of Curaçao and a late win over Côte d’Ivoire have steadied the ship rather than sparked wild celebration. Yet the numbers hint at something stirring: 42 shots across those two games, waves of pressure, chances from everywhere.

“We radiate a real joy in playing,” Havertz says. “We move a lot, play offensively and create scoring chances. And we bounce back after conceding goals.”

He scored twice against Curaçao – a penalty and a late, delicate dink – to continue a quietly lethal run with the national team. At 27, he has 24 goals in 60 caps and is firmly installed as Julian Nagelsmann’s starting centre-forward. Deniz Undav’s brace off the bench against Côte d’Ivoire has sparked calls for a change, but Havertz knows this tune. Doubt has followed him for years.

“Probably because I don’t play in the Bundesliga,” he says. “It was the same at times with Toni Kroos and Ilkay Gündogan, who were abroad for years. It is often said about me: ‘Havertz didn’t score again, he’s useless!’. And when I do score, they say: ‘Well, he’s supposed to, it’s about time!’ I don’t hold it against anyone; that’s perfectly normal.”

The ghost in the box

Havertz has always been hard to pin down. Not quite a classic No 9, not really a No 10, not just a midfielder. A player who glides rather than snarls, whose ruthlessness is quiet.

“Defenders should never know where I am, where I’m going, what I’m planning, or where I’ll be at any given moment,” he says in an interview arranged with Die Zeit. “That’s the worst for them. I try to be like a ghost to defenders.”

The ghost does a lot of unseen work. Mikel Arteta never misses a chance to praise him for it at Arsenal, where Havertz has become the embodiment of a manager’s idea of a modern forward: part finisher, part facilitator, part decoy.

“I can’t just wait around in the penalty area, I need to be involved,” he says. “I also make runs which I know sometimes look pointless, but I’m creating space for the players coming up behind me.”

His career path tells the same story. Winger as a kid, midfielder at Bayer Leverkusen, then suddenly the spearhead under Peter Bosz. Nagelsmann even started him at left-back in a friendly against Turkey in 2023; Havertz scored after five minutes.

“If he were to ask me to do it again, I would,” he says.

He does not fuss, does not complain, does not play to the gallery. That calmness often gets misread.

“I’m aware of the debates that I’m too laid back or my body language is wrong,” he says. “That always comes up when I’m not playing well. But I’m not the sort of person who dwells on it too much. It used to be different. I don’t brood on things any more.”

That does not mean he feels nothing. Far from it.

“I know it doesn’t show from the outside, but I feel it,” he says. “Before a Champions League final, or at a World Cup. Or before penalties. I need that tension to stay focused.”

A body tested, a tournament wide open

This World Cup arrives after a brutal stretch. Knee surgery wrecked the early part of his season, a hamstring problem in 2024-25 added another setback. His output for Arsenal came in spite of his body, not because of it.

“The last year and a half has gone badly for me,” he says. The fact he stands here fit, sharp and central to Germany’s plans is an achievement in itself.

He knows the path ahead is treacherous. A last-16 clash with France looms as a very real possibility. The noise around Germany before the tournament was full of doubt. Yet the old instincts – the ones that carried them to 2014 – never truly vanish in this shirt.

Havertz has already lived through one feverish home tournament, the narrow Euro 2024 quarter-final defeat to Spain played out against a wall of German noise. North America, he says, feels even more charged.

“The atmosphere is amazing. I was really excited before the Euros in Germany, too. A World Cup is even bigger. There’s incredible energy in the stadiums.”

The conditions, so far, have been manageable. Games in Toronto and in Houston’s air-conditioned arena have spared Germany the worst of the heat. Havertz has not found himself gasping for water in the 23rd minute, and he is no fan of the mandated stoppages.

“They’re usually annoying, especially when you’ve just had two or three good situations and feel your flow is being interrupted,” he says. “But others decide that.”

What he can control is his own arc. The teenager who once wanted to walk away from school now leans on that moment as a reference point.

At 17, on the brink at Leverkusen, he wanted to skip the Abitur, Germany’s university entrance exam. Football felt enough. A club staff member intervened, framing it as a test of willpower, not academics.

“At 17, you don’t think you need school any more,” Havertz says. “At that age, you also don’t think about injuries or how things can suddenly take a completely different turn. It was a life lesson for me: seeing things through to the end instead of just quitting.”

He finished the exams. He stayed the course. It is a small story, but it fits the bigger picture of a player who does not chase headlines, who absorbs criticism, who keeps running those “pointless” channels to open space for others.

The ghost of Budapest still lingers. So does the memory of those streets in Islington, thick with gratitude and what-ifs. Somewhere between those two days lies the version of Kai Havertz that Germany now needs: calm, cold, and ready to haunt defenders on the biggest stage of all.