Kai Havertz Reflects on Arsenal's Premier League Triumph and World Cup Ambitions

Kai Havertz remembers the moment the bus felt like the wrong place to be.

Three and a half weeks ago in Budapest, he had scored early in a Champions League final that slipped from Arsenal’s grasp in the cruellest way. The next day, at 2pm sharp, he was supposed to climb on to an open-top bus in Islington and wave the Premier League trophy through a sea of red and white.

Celebrate? After that?

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

The streets answered the question for him. The noise, the colour, the tears and laughter that rolled down Holloway Road and beyond made the parade feel not just justified but necessary. Twenty-two years without a league title had built up a pressure of its own; Arsenal’s catharsis could not be postponed.

“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.”

And now he is hunting a fourth.

A different Germany, a different weight

Havertz is talking at Germany’s World Cup base in Winston, North Carolina, where the surroundings feel more like a country estate than a training camp. The Graylyn Estate, with its castle-like façade and manicured grounds, has become the backdrop to a squad trying to shake off six years of tournament baggage.

Germany have already won Group E. That sentence alone lifts a shadow. Group-stage exits in 2018 and 2022 left scars, and Havertz lived both of them. In Qatar he scored twice against Costa Rica, yet still watched the knockout rounds from home.

“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 cartwheeling around Winston. A demolition of Curaçao and a late, nervy win over Côte d’Ivoire are not enough to declare a renaissance. They are, however, a start. Across those two games Germany took 42 shots, played on the front foot and, crucially, responded when punched in the mouth.

“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, one from the spot and one with a deft late dink, adding to a quietly impressive international record: 24 goals in 60 caps at 27 years old. Julian Nagelsmann has made him the starting centre-forward, even if Deniz Undav’s match‑turning brace against Côte d’Ivoire has sparked calls for a change against Ecuador on Thursday.

That debate is familiar territory. Havertz has spent much of his career being questioned at home.

The ghost in the penalty area

“Probably because I don’t play in the Bundesliga,” he shrugs. “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.”

His answer to that noise is not to shout louder, but to disappear. Literally.

“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.”

Havertz is an awkward player to pin down with labels. He began as a winger, then spent long stretches as a midfielder. Peter Bosz pushed him up front at Bayer Leverkusen. At Chelsea he floated between roles. For Germany, Nagelsmann has even used him at left-back in a friendly against Turkey; Havertz scored after five minutes that night.

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

Managers love that kind of obedience, but it comes with a tactical brain that makes him more than a utility man. He does not stand and wait in the box, arms raised, demanding service.

“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.”

Those decoy sprints, the constant drifting, the angles he chooses – they rarely make a highlight reel. Coaches notice. Team-mates notice. Critics often do not.

Misread body language, real tension

His manner on the pitch, cool and unhurried, has long been misunderstood. An unfussy style can look like a lack of urgency when things go wrong.

“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 glides through big nights without feeling them.

“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.”

That edge may be exactly what Germany need now. A last-16 meeting with France looms as a real possibility, and the build-up to this tournament was full of doubts. Havertz himself arrived after a brutal 18 months: knee surgery, a hamstring injury in 2024-25, and long stretches where rhythm felt impossible. His impact for Arsenal, given that backdrop, becomes harder to ignore.

“The last year and a half has gone badly for me,” he admits. The World Cup offers a chance to redraw the story.

Lessons from Leverkusen and the long view

Havertz has already lived through a home-tournament whirlwind. At Euro 2024, he was part of a Germany side carried by a wave of emotion before falling narrowly to Spain in the quarter-finals. This time, in North America, the volume has gone up again.

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

So far, the conditions have been kind. Games in Toronto and in an air-conditioned arena in Houston have spared Germany the worst of the heat. He has not yet found himself gasping for water in the 23rd minute, and he is no fan of Fifa’s hydration breaks.

“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 decide is how he responds to moments of strain. That, he learned early. At 17, on the brink of breaking through at Leverkusen, he wanted to walk away from school and skip the Abitur, Germany’s university entrance exam. A staff member at the club stopped him, insisting he finish.

“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.”

From Budapest to Winston, from the bus parade he almost skipped to the World Cup he now leads from the front, that lesson keeps circling back.

Germany do not need a ghost in the penalty area to pass an exam this time. They need a forward who refuses to walk away before it is done.