Kai Havertz Reflects on Arsenal's Title and Germany's World Cup Journey
Kai Havertz remembers the noise first. Budapest, three-and-a-half weeks ago, and the sound inside his head after the final whistle was louder than anything in the stadium.
Arsenal had just lost a Champions League final in the cruellest way imaginable. His early goal against Paris Saint-Germain had seemed destined to decide it for almost an hour. Then it all slipped away. By the time he reached the dressing room, another thought crashed in: what now for the Premier League trophy parade?
They were due on an open-top bus through Islington at 2pm the next day. A million people ready to celebrate a title 22 years in the making. It felt wrong.
“To be honest, it was tough,” Havertz says. “After the match, I initially thought we would call the whole thing off.” Grief and glory had collided. Which one do you show the world?
By the next morning, the picture had changed. The parade went ahead. North London turned red and white and unburdened itself in colour and noise. The doubts dissolved in the streets.
“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 Islington to Winston
The setting could hardly be more different. Havertz speaks at Germany’s World Cup base in Winston, North Carolina, a quiet, manicured corner of the United States where the national team has parked its ambitions at the Graylyn Estate, a castle-like complex that feels a world away from Islington’s chaos.
The mood is lighter here, but not complacent. Germany, bruised by group-stage exits in 2018 and 2022, have already secured top spot in Group E. That alone eases a weight that had been building for six years.
“Qatar was anything but successful for us as a team and for me personally,” he says. He scored twice against Costa Rica at that World Cup and still went home early. The goals felt hollow.
This time, the energy is different. “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 getting carried away with a demolition of Curaçao and a late, hard-fought win over Côte d’Ivoire. The opposition was modest, the margins at times fine. Yet the numbers hint at a team loosening its shoulders: 42 shots across two games, attacks flowing again, risks taken.
“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.”
The ghost in the penalty area
Havertz scored twice against Curaçao – a penalty and a late, delicate dink – to continue a quietly lethal record for his country. Twenty-four goals in 60 caps is the return of a centre-forward, not a luxury playmaker. At 27, he is Nagelsmann’s first-choice No 9.
Even so, the noise back home has started again. Deniz Undav came off the bench to score twice and turn the Côte d’Ivoire game around. Calls for Undav to start against Ecuador have grown. It is familiar territory for Havertz, who has long felt that his work is easier to appreciate from the dugout than from the stands.
“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.”
He shrugs it off, but the perception jars with the player he has become. Havertz is an unusual forward: all angles, timing and intelligence rather than chest-thumping bravado. His ruthlessness is understated, his movement almost sly.
“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. “I can’t just wait around in the penalty area, I need to be involved,” he explains. “I also make runs which I know sometimes look pointless, but I’m creating space for the players coming up behind me.”
Managers love that. Mikel Arteta rarely misses a chance to praise his tactical discipline and willingness to sacrifice his own numbers for the system. Nagelsmann is the same. Havertz has become the ultimate “plug and play” footballer.
The shape-shifter
His versatility is no accident. He started as a winger, spent long spells in midfield and only later became a spearhead under Peter Bosz at Bayer Leverkusen. Nagelsmann even used 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. No fuss, no drama. Just another job to do.
That low-key manner has sometimes been mistaken for indifference. “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.”
Inside, the picture is more complex. “I know it doesn’t show from the outside, but I feel it,” he admits. “Before a Champions League final, or at a World Cup. Or before penalties. I need that tension to stay focused.”
The nerves, the ghosting runs, the late goals – they all feed into the same idea: instinct. Germany may need that now more than anything if they are to claim a first World Cup since 2014, with a potential last-16 meeting with France looming on the horizon.
Pain, then perspective
Havertz arrives in the United States sharper than he has felt in some time. The season did not start that way. Knee surgery disrupted his early months with Arsenal; a hamstring problem in 2024-25 dragged him back to the treatment room. “The last year and a half has gone badly for me,” he says. The fact he still played such a central role in Arsenal’s title win only underlines how he pushed through it.
He knows about emotional swings in tournament football too. At Euro 2024, he was part of the Germany side that rode a wave of home expectation before falling narrowly to Spain in the quarter-finals. That defeat hurt, but the noise around the team in Germany felt like a revival.
North America, he says, has gone up another level. “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 have been kinder than feared. Games in Toronto and in an air-conditioned Houston arena have spared Germany the worst of the heat. Havertz has not yet felt the need for a drink 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.”
Seeing things through
What he can decide is how much of himself he throws into this World Cup. The answer, judging by his story, is likely to be: everything.
When he was 17 and on the brink of Leverkusen’s first team, Havertz tried to walk away from school and abandon the Abitur, Germany’s university entrance exam. Football was taking off. Why bother with the classroom?
He was stopped by a staff member at the club who saw something more important than a diploma. This was about willpower, about finishing what you start.
“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.”
That lesson has followed him from Leverkusen to London, from Budapest heartbreak to Islington euphoria, and now to a World Cup base in North Carolina. Germany’s campaign will not be judged on group-stage comfort, or on pretty attacking numbers against Curaçao. It will be judged on whether they can stay the course when the pressure tightens and the margins vanish.
Havertz has already learned what happens if you stop too soon. The question now is whether that ghost in the box can haunt this World Cup all the way to its final night.
