Kai Havertz Revisits 2021 Chelsea Champions League Wins Before PSG Final

Kai Havertz is back on football’s biggest club stage, and his memories of chelsea champions league wins still start with Porto in 2021. The Arsenal striker said he wants to feel that again when his side face Paris Saint-Germain in Saturday’s final in Budapest.

Kai Havertz and Porto

Havertz scored the winner for Chelsea against Manchester City in the 2021 Champions League final, a goal he says he will never forget. “It is something I will never forget,” he said, adding, “As a kid I could have never dreamed I would score a goal in the final and win that game.”

He also described Chelsea as “the underdogs on that day, for sure.” That final came against a Manchester City side managed by Pep Guardiola and gave Havertz the defining moment of his Chelsea spell.

Arsenal, Budapest and PSG

Now the setting is different, but the target is familiar. Arsenal face Paris Saint-Germain in Budapest on Saturday, and Havertz said, “There is just so much history with it,” before adding, “just to watch that final is something very special. So to play in it is unreal.”

The move back to this stage matters because he has had to fight to get here. Arsenal signed him from Chelsea for £65m two years after that final, and he finished as Arsenal’s top scorer last season despite missing its last three months with a hamstring injury.

Havertz Back From Injury

This season brought a bigger setback. Havertz missed almost five months after sustaining a knee injury on the opening day against Manchester United, then had two surgeries and spent weeks in a knee brace before returning in January.

He said, “I was in a bad place when I was injured.” His return also restored a player Arsenal had already leaned on in Europe, with his goals at Bayer Leverkusen in the last 16 and at Sporting in the quarter-final described as crucial.

For Arsenal, the immediate task is clear: get to the final and finish it. Havertz put the challenge in plain terms: “You need to get there, and then you still have to make that step and win it.”