Nick Woltemade has given a rare look inside Germany’s camp, saying the team spent part of its downtime at The Graylyn Estate in North Carolina playing Werwolf and then Verstecken. About twelve national players took part, and the game moved outdoors before two men were left to search with eyes shut for two minutes and then seven minutes to find the others.
The detail matters because Germany were in the middle of preparing for a World Cup round of 16 match against Paraguay, with the knockout game set for Monday at 22.30 Uhr MESZ on ZDF and MagentaTV. Woltemade, who plays for Newcastle United and formerly VfB Stuttgart, described the hotel scene in the YouTube format 90+, turning a throwaway camp moment into something closer to a snapshot of a squad trying to stay loose.
The sequence began with Werwolf, then shifted to Verstecken when the players decided they wanted something more physical and less settled at the hotel. That change also explains the scale of the game: with roughly a dozen players involved, the group could divide cleanly, and the rules required two searchers at a time, first waiting with their eyes closed and then roaming for seven minutes.
Kai Havertz later said Woltemade had hidden behind a row of chairs, only for his head to remain visible above them. His reaction captured the mood in one line: “Wir sind halt Kinder.” That is the friction in this camp as much as the joke itself. Germany are in a knockout phase where concentration is supposed to harden, yet the players are also passing time like schoolchildren at the hotel, trying to ward off Lagerkoller before the match that now sits directly in front of them.
Julian Nagelsmann, meanwhile, has tried to keep the focus on results rather than symbolism, saying he does not feel any need to prove himself as national coach and that it is “nur ums Gewinnen.” If Germany win against Paraguay, the hotel games will read as harmless downtime. If they do not, this glimpse of a squad at play will look like a brief, human pause before the pressure of the World Cup swallowed the camp whole.
