Arsenal’s Kai Havertz: ‘We are going on the pitch and we are going to beat PSG’

Few people can say they have scored a winning goal in a Champions League final. He might have done so in the blue of Chelsea, but Kai Havertz comes into this weekend’s final against Paris Saint-Germain uniquely placed among his Arsenal team-mates.

Kepa Arrizabalaga was also part of the Chelsea squad that beat Manchester City 1-0 in the 2021 final, but Havertz is the only Champions League winner with a realistic chance of starting for Arsenal in Budapest.

Signed ahead of the season that Arsenal returned to the competition for the first time in seven years (2023-24), the Germany international’s European experiences in west London have always stood out in the north of the city. When Arsenal reached the quarter-finals for the first time in 14 years that season, he was the only player in Mikel Arteta’s first leg starting line-up against Porto in the round of 16 to have previously started a knockout game in the Champions League.

The squad have built up a wealth of shared experiences in the knockouts since, but Havertz still has a different memory bank to pull from.

“I can only give them (my team-mates) good memories of myself, so maybe that helps,” he told reporters ahead of the final. “It is something I will never forget. We (Chelsea) were the underdogs on that day, for sure. We hadn’t had the best season — obviously, now it is completely different.

“As a kid, I could have never dreamt that I would score a goal in the final and win that game. I will always be proud of it. I just try to take that feeling into Saturday and, hopefully, I will get that feeling again.”

Big moments have not abandoned Havertz since that night in Lisbon for Chelsea just over five years ago.

The 26-year-old’s most recent goal against Burnley all-but won Arsenal their first Premier League title in 22 years. It was a moment in which years of work came to fruition, and with manager Mikel Arteta the figurehead, Havertz joked: “I think it is nice that we got him a little gift (the Premier League title) back now. He brought the club back to where it belongs.”

The forward has supplied gifts for his manager in Europe this season, too. In the Champions League, he scored an 89th-minute equaliser away to his boyhood club Bayer Leverkusen in the round of 16 and a last-gasp winner away to Sporting CP in the quarter-finals.

That winner in Lisbon came at a critical time for Arsenal. When asked for what he believed to be a crucial point in the season, Havertz said: “The Carabao Cup final when we lost against City was a big one.

“It was a moment where we felt like we could do so much better and there was so much more in this team. Everyone needed to lift their spirits. There was the international break after and we just said to ourselves that we need to come back stronger.

“From that moment, things changed a bit and we were more successful. For me, that was a big moment. You are always frustrated when you lose finals, so to come back from it and win the league like this is great.”

While Havertz’s celebrations of the goal that put Arsenal on the verge of winning the title will be an image that lasts from this season, the past 18 months have not been easy for him.

After a debut season that got better with time, in which he scored 14 goals and assisted eight following his £65million ($87m) move to the Emirates Stadium, he had a tally of 15 goals and five assists by February in his second season (2024-25). That is when he was struck by a major hamstring injury that kept him out for three months which, with Gabriel Jesus also out with an anterior cruciate ligament injury, resulted in Arteta turning to Mikel Merino up front.

Major knee injuries took the first half of the season away from Havertz, while minor muscular issues have made his contributions since the new year more sporadic.

On still having such big moments despite these injury struggles, Havertz said: “It feels amazing. I just thought about it the other day because I was in a bad place when I was injured, especially because it came after a big injury.

“I had two surgeries and was in a brace for weeks. You are just inside a building. You cannot go out. You cannot walk, you do nothing. For me, things shifted when I went out on the pitch for the first time. Then you can feel the grass again, you can put your boots on again. I think that is always the big moment when you are in recovery.

“All the players and staff helped me believe in myself and to get back to my best, too. Everyone told me from January how there is so much (football) to play. That is where my momentum also shifted. Injuries are always bad, and it was bad for me, but I am just happy that I am back now. I am feeling amazing and I hope that I can help the team also.”

As Havertz alluded to earlier, this Arsenal side are coming into Saturday’s European final in a very different mood to his Chelsea team of 2021.

Thomas Tuchel had taken over from Frank Lampard only in the January of that year, scraped into fourth place in the league with one point more than Leicester City, and surprised all of Europe by beating Real Madrid in the semi-finals. This year, Arsenal not only come into this final as Premier League champions, but as one of the early favourites to reach this stage.

Arteta’s team have conceded only six Champions League goals all season and have been behind for only 43 minutes (away to Bayer Leverkusen in the last 16). These numbers do not appear to matter to neutrals: Paris Saint-Germain’s cavalier attacking play and semi-final triumph over Arsenal last season sees them come into this as strong favourites for most.

Havertz did not play in either semi-final leg last season, but scored in Arsenal’s 2-0 win over PSG at the Emirates in the league phase in 2024. With that, and the fact that Arteta has spoken about wanting to create an atmosphere as if Arsenal have already won before matches have kicked off recently, the matter-of-fact manner of the German’s final statement did not come across as arrogant or out of character, but simply as unfiltered self-belief.

“I don’t even think about that (who are the favourites and underdogs), to be fair,” he said. “PSG won it last year, so they were probably the best team in Europe last year. They have had an unbelievable season again.

“For us, it is the second time the club has made it to the final, but we have so much confidence. We have been fighting on the highest level for a couple of years now and we have finally won the Premier League. I think that gives us a big boost as well. It doesn’t matter if you are an underdog or whatever.

“We are going to go on the pitch and are going to beat them. So, go for it.”