“Some of my teammates call me Donkey.” A grin creeps across Kai Havertz’s face. “It’s not because of my football,” the Chelsea forward adds, as if he needed to. Instead, he says, it is something deeper. “From day one, I felt a special relationship with donkeys. It’s a very calm animal: maybe I personalised myself in them because I’m calm too. They chill all day, don’t do much, just want to live their life. I loved them always. And when I lost, I would go to the sanctuary. You look at the animals, see something human in them. It was a kind of recovery, a place I felt peace.”
It is a cold, wet morning in Wimbledon and Havertz is talking about football and life, the game and everything that goes with it, including politics, money and war. In a clear, calm tone, he talks about change at Chelsea and throughout football: of players, coaches, staff, even owners. In himself, too. About scoring the winner in the Champions League final, the release and responsibility, and the dreams players pursue and the pressure that pursues them, exposed early. But the first thing – and the last thing – is animals.
