Kai Havertz won the Player of the Match award in Germany’s win over Curacao on Sunday, justifying Thomas Muller’s pre-match praise of him.
Germany were impressive as a whole on Sunday in a dominant win over Curacao, but Arsenal’s Kai Havertz managed to stand out enough to win the Player of the Match award in his country’s World Cup opener.
Havertz scored his first goal of the game from the penalty spot, giving Germany a 3-1 lead just before half-time.
The striker then added his second of the game late on, chipping the goalkeeper in the 88th minute for 7-1.
One person who would have been glad to see Havertz’s strong performance was former Germany international Thomas Muller, who had heaped praise on the Arsenal man ahead of the game.
“Kai Havertz is an anchor player for this team,” Muller said. “He is clearly set as the No.9, and if possible, he should play every single minute. Especially against big teams, he becomes even more crucial than against smaller ones.
“So, I want to see Kai Havertz on the pitch every minute. If he can’t run anymore, then we can put someone else in. We have Undav and other wonderful players waiting, but Kai is my man.”
Havertz did end up playing every minute of the Curacao fixture, and he’ll likely be even more important to his team in their other group games against the Ivory Coast (June 20th) and Ecuador (June 25th) later this month.
But with a relatively forgiving group stage format at this year’s tournament, Germany’s 7-1 opening win will likely be enough to see them through to the knockout stages on its own.
Three points might be enough to progress, especially when combined with a big goal difference tally. So Germany just need to be professional now.
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