Kai Havertz Reflects on Arsenal's Triumph and World Cup Aspirations

Kai Havertz remembers the bus.

The Champions League final in Budapest had slipped through Arsenal’s fingers in the cruellest way imaginable, his early goal against Paris Saint-Germain dragged into the shadows by late heartbreak. Less than 24 hours later, he was expected to stand on an open-top bus, grin, and wave a Premier League trophy through the streets of Islington.

It felt wrong. It felt impossible.

“To be honest, it was tough,” he admits. In the immediate aftermath he thought the parade might be scrapped altogether. But the next morning, the picture changed. The streets of north London did the rest.

What followed was a tidal wave of red: noise, colour, catharsis. A fanbase that had waited 22 years for a league title was never going to stay home. Havertz, who had never seen anything like it, was swept along. “We had a huge season behind us,” he says. “That had to be celebrated properly with the fans.” It now sits, he says, among the top three experiences of his career.

And yet he is already chasing another to add to that list.

A different Germany, a different energy

Havertz is talking now from Winston, North Carolina, where Germany have built their World Cup camp around the stately Graylyn Estate, a castle-like base that feels a world away from Budapest. The mood is lighter. The pressure remains, but it has changed shape.

Germany, twice dumped out in the group stages in 2018 and 2022, have already secured top spot in Group E. That in itself is a release. “Qatar was anything but successful for us as a team and for me personally,” Havertz says. The scars of those early exits were real; the obligation not to repeat them even more so. “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 doing laps of honour around the training pitches. Two wins – a demolition of Curaçao and a late, hard-edged victory over Côte d’Ivoire – are not enough to erase years of doubt. They are, though, a start. Forty-two shots across those two matches hint at a team that has rediscovered its appetite.

“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.” That last part matters. This is no longer a fragile Germany waiting for the next punch.

Havertz himself has stepped back into the centre of the frame. Two goals against Curaçao – a penalty and a deft late dink – pushed his international tally to 24 in 60 caps. At 27, he is Nagelsmann’s first-choice centre-forward, the reference point around which the attack turns.

Even that status has not silenced debate. Deniz Undav came off the bench to score twice and flip the Côte d’Ivoire game; calls for him to start against Ecuador surfaced almost immediately. It fits a pattern Havertz knows well: the sense that, for many at home, his work can slip under the radar.

“Probably because I don’t play in the Bundesliga,” he says. Toni Kroos and Ilkay Gündogan know that feeling from their long years abroad. Havertz has become used to the binary noise: “Havertz didn’t score again, he’s useless!” followed by “Well, he’s supposed to, it’s about time!” when he does. He shrugs it off. “I don’t hold it against anyone; that’s perfectly normal.”

The ghost in the box

Part of the problem is that Havertz doesn’t fit neatly into a box. He is not the classic No 9 who bullies centre-backs and roars at the crowd. His ruthlessness is quieter, his influence more subtle.

“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. “That’s the worst for them. I try to be like a ghost to defenders.”

It is a telling choice of word. Havertz glides rather than stomps. He trades on timing, on angles, on appearing in spaces a beat later than anyone expects. For managers, that unpredictability is gold.

“I can’t just wait around in the penalty area, I need to be involved,” he explains. He makes runs that look pointless on first viewing, the kind that draw groans in the stands. But they drag defenders away, carve corridors for those behind him. Mikel Arteta rarely misses a chance to praise that selflessness.

His career has turned on that adaptability. He started wide, then in midfield, before Peter Bosz pushed him up front at Bayer Leverkusen. Nagelsmann even tested him at left-back in a 2023 friendly against Turkey; Havertz scored after five minutes. The experiment said as much about the player as it did about the coach. “If he were to ask me to do it again, I would,” Havertz says.

That unfussy willingness to do whatever is asked can be mistaken for detachment. He has heard the talk about body language, the accusations of being too laid back. “That always comes up when I’m not playing well,” he says. It used to bother him. Now, less so. “I’m not the sort of person who dwells on it too much. I don’t brood on things any more.”

That does not mean he is made of stone. “I know it doesn’t show from the outside, but I feel it,” he says of the nerves. Champions League finals, World Cups, penalty kicks – the tension spikes. He welcomes it. He needs it to sharpen his focus.

Scars, lessons and a World Cup shot

Instinct and nerve may yet decide whether Germany can claim a first World Cup title since 2014. The path is laced with danger: a shaky buildup, questions over the squad’s balance, and the looming possibility of a last-16 meeting with France. Havertz arrives here with his own bruises.

“The last year and a half has gone badly for me,” he says. Knee surgery disrupted the early part of his club season; a hamstring problem in 2024-25 added another setback. That he still played a central role in Arsenal’s title win only underlines the resilience beneath the calm exterior.

He has known crushing national disappointment too. Havertz started for Germany at Euro 2024 on home soil, only to see the campaign end in a narrow, suffocating quarter-final defeat to Spain. The noise around that tournament was huge. This, he says, is even louder.

“The atmosphere is amazing,” he says of the World Cup in North America. “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, at least so far, have been manageable. Games in Toronto and the air-conditioned arena in Houston have spared Germany the worst of the heat. Havertz has not yet found himself gasping for water in the 23rd minute, and he is no fan of the newly fashionable 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 far this team goes.

At 17, on the brink of breaking through at Leverkusen, Havertz wanted to walk away from school and skip the Abitur, Germany’s university entrance exam. Football felt like enough. A staff member at the club cut through that illusion, insisting he finish. It became a test of character more than academics.

“At 17, you don’t think you need school any more,” he says. You also don’t think about injuries, about form, about how quickly a career can twist in an unexpected direction. Seeing that through taught him something: finish what you start, don’t quit when the road bends.

Now, in North Carolina, with Germany already out of the group-stage trap and the knockout rounds drawing near, that lesson hangs in the air. Havertz has lived the extremes: the lonely walk off the pitch in Qatar, the surreal joy of a title parade the day after a European heartbreak, the grind of rehab, the roar of a World Cup crowd.

The ghost in the box has his chance again. How long he can keep slipping away from defenders – and from doubt – may decide how long Germany stay at this party.