Under the honours heading on Harry Kane’s Wikipedia page (yes, guilty), the bullet points listing his individual achievements do not fit onto a laptop screen.
On the phone, a fair few scrolls are required too, for this impressive list starts with Millwall’s Young Player of the Year 2011–12 and runs through enough Golden Boots to fill a walk-in wardrobe.
Twenty-eight bullet points and a grand total of 49 achievements, notably the World Cup Golden Boot from 2018, as well as his inclusion in the Premier League’s team of the season six times over.
It’s a remarkable haul, and let’s not forget he’s the record all-time goalscorer for England and Tottenham as well.
No mantlepiece in existence is surely long enough for this England great’s collection of individual awards, but when it comes to the trophy cabinet, the footballing world knows – for this is arguably the sport’s most famous running “curse” – that it is desperately empty.
There will always be the, ahem, Torneio Internacional Algarve in 2010 for England’s U17s, but that inclusion is almost as offensive as the six tournaments listed where Kane finished runner-up: thrice with Tottenham, twice with England, and once with Bayern Munich.
It is a tragically short list only made longer by these near-misses that do not feature on pages for serial winners like Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, among others, and there is even the ignominy of a Nations League third place making the cut for Kane.
Six bullet points, just one actual trophy, won by Kane 15 years ago in Portugal when he was 16 and joined by players including Sam Johnstone, Conor Coady and Saido Berahino in the England youth setup.
Soon though, surely, an actual trophy in the proverbial or perhaps soon-to-be-assembled cabinet, for Kane looks destined to end his curse as a professional this season at the age of 33.
Bayern may be out of the DFB-Pokal but they hold a healthy lead at the top of the Bundesliga – eight points ahead of holders Bayer Leverkusen with 10 games to go.
Kane once more leads the goalscoring charts in Germany, with 21 goals to his name this season, while his haul of 36 league goals last term earned him the European Golden Shoe – the first time he has outscored the lot in Europe’s top divisions.
Somehow though that tally wasn’t backed up by a trophy, and few saw this part coming.
The move from Tottenham in the summer of 2023 was supposed to guarantee Kane silverware, having swapped one of this century’s biggest underachievers for the perennial winners that are Bayern Munich.
Of course, then, Leverkusen went the league season unbeaten and many a social media “banter” account basked in Kane’s inability to win a trophy in what went down as Bayern’s first trophyless campaign since 2011-12.
The streak of 11 straight Bundesliga titles was ended, but now Bayern are primed to reclaim the crown at the first time of asking, handing Kane silverware at last.
And he could yet end this curse in style. The Champions League draw was relatively kind to Bayern despite the fact they finished 12th in the league phase, and their path to the final avoids favourites Real Madrid, as well as Liverpool and Arsenal.
On Wednesday night, too, both Bayern and Kane made a statement, the England captain on target twice in the 3-0 first-leg win over domestic rivals Leverkusen in the last 16.
The double takes Kane to nine goals in the Champions League this season, already an improvement on the eight he scored in Europe last term – enough to top the charts with Kylian Mbappe – and his display earned him Uefa’s player of the match award, a little piece of silverware ahead of the promise of more to come.
Bayern themselves may not be the immovable force they have been but they are the most recent winners of the Champions League in their half of the draw, having lifted a sixth European Cup in 2020, and only Barcelona are better placed with the bookmakers to deny the German side a spot in what would be an unofficial home final.
The Champions League final takes place at Bayern’s Allianz Arena on 31 May, offering Kane a potential shot at redemption six years on from Tottenham’s loss to Liverpool in the 2019 final.
All that is a longer shot, given Barcelona also lead the way in La Liga, but at the very least Kane is on the cusp of winning his first league title.
Only a collapse in form will stop this from happening, but you can bet Kane is as determined as any player in that Bayern dressing room to complete the job, while his cause is helped by the fact head coach Vincent Kompany is looking to emphatically silence his doubters as well.
What this means then is that every football fan… Okay, scratch that… Every England fan… Okay, scratch that, too…. Every non-Arsenal supporting England fan (or simply every sensible football fan who is capable of putting tribalism aside and can recognise when someone has been truly earned something) should celebrate the fact Kane is seemingly two months away from finally lifting silverware.
One of England’s greatest-ever players does not warrant the title of football’s greatest player to never win a trophy. And that should – a word worth putting in italics – soon be a label ripped off his name for good.
He’s got one hand on at least one trophy.
from Football - The i Paper https://ift.tt/WczHhUa
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