Kai Havertz Set for Final Start as Is Arsenal Playing Today Turns to Budapest
is arsenal playing today has a direct answer: Arsenal are due to face Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League final in Budapest on Saturday, and Kai Havertz is in line to start. The 27-year-old striker is back in the biggest club match after missing almost five months with a knee injury.
Havertz and Budapest
Havertz has made this final feel personal. He scored Chelsea’s winner in the 2021 Champions League final against Manchester City in Porto, and he has said, "I remember as a child I watched all the games – and just to watch that final is something very special. So to play in it is unreal."
He also framed the challenge plainly: "It is going to be hard, but we are going to be well prepared." Arsenal paid £65m to sign him from Chelsea two years after that night in Porto, and now he is back in position to influence another final for a different club.
Arteta’s selection call
The selection edge has recently moved toward Havertz. He was preferred to Viktor Gyökeres in recent games against City and Burnley, giving Mikel Arteta a familiar option at a time when Arsenal are chasing another major trophy after winning their first Premier League since 2004.
That choice carries added weight because Havertz’s season was interrupted on the opening day against Manchester United, when he sustained a knee injury that led to two surgeries and weeks in a knee brace. He returned in January, and the restart has been followed by a run of appearances in the run-in.
Havertz’s return path
Havertz described the recovery in blunt terms: "I was in a bad place when I was injured." He added, "You are just inside a building. You cannot go out, you cannot walk, you do nothing."
He said the support around him changed that stretch. "But all the players and staff helped me believe in myself and to get back to my best," he said. "Everyone told me from January how there is so much to play."
Arsenal will now take that return into the final in Budapest with a player who has already scored in the last 16 at Bayer Leverkusen and in the quarter-final at Sporting. For Havertz, the assignment is familiar; for Arsenal, his start is one of the clearest signs of how Arteta wants to attack Saturday’s final.
