Bayern Munich were crowned Bundesliga winners on Sunday, ensuring the England captain ended his 'trophy curse' with his first piece of silverware
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At last, Harry Kane has got the monkey off his back. No longer is he football's greatest player to never win a trophy. Bayern Munich have wrestled back the Bundesliga title, and their £85 millon English striker led the charge.
Kane's entire career has been about redemption, about proving doubters wrong and making critics eat their words. As detailed in his very emotional piece for in 2018, he has been fuelled by rejection from an early age, starting from his release by Arsenal aged eight. "Looking back on it now, it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me, because it gave me a drive that wasn’t there before," he proclaimed of this setback.
The many, many goals Kane has scored down the years have silenced a lot of those naysayers, though without the team silverware to show for his efforts, there would always be more of them. Now, he is free from the shackles of those jibes. His most staunch haters will claim the Bundesliga is a one-team league, but against a Bayer Leverkusen side who went last season unbeaten domestically and having appointed the manager of relegated Burnley, this was far from a cakewalk for Bayern. It doesn't matter either way. These are nuances for the fickle.
Kane's career has a new chapter, and it won't stop at one title. He can now chase down far, far greater accolades. The painful journey to this point at long last led to vindication. This is how the real-life Roy of the Rovers became an all-time great:
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Half of the legend behind Kane’s rise is he wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near this good a footballer. Sure, he scored plenty in Tottenham’s academy, but he was hardly a standout prospect. A nice finisher, not a top-tier one. A decent and hard-working athlete, not a specimen. His gormless if haplessly happy expressions saw him become a cult figure in the early days of 'Football Twitter'.
"He had a lovely technique – an ability to pass and receive and shoot – but if there was something that endeared him to you it was that he was very, very low maintenance," former Spurs youth coach Alex Inglethorpe said of Kane to . "We just had to keep giving him opportunities to get good at what he needed – to get better at heading, get better on his left side. That obsession to improve is undoubtedly his greatest strength."
Everyone who has come across Kane’s path always references that ‘obsession’. "He was hungry for goals," former team-mate Sebastian Bassong told the . "Obsessed. Kind of selfish to be fair. He wanted them so much, all the time. He was shooting from all over. At times it kind of irritated the older guys when he came and trained with us and didn’t pass.
"He reminded me a bit of Gareth Bale when he came through, an introvert but not to any detriment. Outside the pitch, well raised. Not speaking too loud, really willing to learn and that really shocked me. This kid has the ears to listen and he is using them really well.
"The only time he was really dangerous was in and around the box. His right foot was like a shotgun. Boom. I thought ‘yo, this kid can strike the ball’, but he couldn’t master his own strength and super power. He was just young. He needed to learn how to calibrate because the ball was flying everywhere. He was rushing things. Like a young puppy, running around, too crazy. But it was just a matter of time before he got the confidence and accuracy."
When Kane broke into Tottenham’s first-team fold between 2012 and 2014, he showed a few promising glimpses of becoming a Premier League striker. He could strike a ball on either foot from long range and tight angles, even if some of his technique needed refining.
"Harry wanted to get to the top, and nothing was going to stop him achieving that because of the ability, desire and mentality he possesses," Tim Sherwood, the first manager to properly integrate Kane into the senior squad, said. "He needed to work on sharpening his feet up around the box, so we spent a lot of time doing sessions where he had to move his feet a little bit quicker, open the space and shoot off both sides. But he also had that knack of being aware of players around him, and the intelligence to slide people in. He could see a pass and he could execute it."
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Kane has been vocal of his admiration for NFL star Tom Brady, widely considered the greatest to have played that sport. As a teenager in 2013, Kane dipped his toes into American football waters and found himself in awe of a self-made hero.
"He reminded me of me," Kane said of Brady after watching a documentary on his unlikely rise after dropping to 199th in the NFL draft. "People were always making the same assumptions about me. 'Well, you know, he doesn't look like a proper striker'. It was genuinely inspiring to me. Brady believed in himself so much – and he just kept working and working, almost obsessively, in order to get better. It really connected with me."
That was the spark Kane needed to kick into gear, the last piece of the mentality puzzle to unlock his true potential. That relentless 'obsession' existed to better himself, but now he had evidence of concept come to life. He bet on himself to make it at Tottenham off the back of an uninspiring loan spell at Leicester City, and it paid more than just dividends.
Getty Images Sport'One-season wonder'
Kane's breakout 2014-15 season proved the catalyst for Tottenham's youth revolution under Mauricio Pochettino. Still in his early twenties, Kane pushed back against the rebellion of the dressing room's older guard who tried to oust the Argentine boss, and he was duly repaid for his loyalty, racking up 31 goals in 51 appearances on his way to being named the PFA Young Player of the Year.
Yet still there were doubters. Arsenal fans in particular tried their darnedest to play down what was happening down the other end of Seven Sisters Road. 'One-season wonder' was the most consistent shout. But Pochettino's faith never wavered.
"Harry Kane has skills that are similar to different players, including [Gabriel] Batistuta. The challenge is doing it all again next season," Pochettino said in May 2015. "Now it is up to him. Harry knows the way to improve his ability. He is in a very good moment to keep working hard and develop his game. You need to wait for the right moment to give a player the responsibility because sometimes we can see a player is ready, but not quite complete to assume the responsibility and keep the same level. Big players always have a good first season – like Wayne Rooney, after his first season a lot of people maybe had doubts about the next one, but this is football."
Kane followed up his 2014-15 campaign by winning the Premier League Golden Boot in each of the two following seasons, leading Tottenham to their highest-ever finishes – third and second, the latter with a club-record points haul of 86 – since the division's breakaway from the Football League in 1992. Spurs were a young, fiery team who played a fast and attractive brand of football, and Kane was the crown jewel. The more he scored, the more his star and legend grew. By the time Tottenham left their White Hart Lane home for Wembley and then moved back to their new billion-pound palace, there was a different feel and aura about him.
After each game in which Kane scored, Pochettino would be asked whether he could go on to break Alan Shearer's Premier League record – which still stands at 260 goals – and if the striker was already Spurs' greatest-ever player. International media took far more of an interest in Tottenham. That, really, ought to have served as a warning.
AFPOutgrowing Tottenham
When Kane signed an eye-watering six-year contract at Spurs in 2018, it came under the presumption the club would try to strengthen in the transfer window to finally start winning trophies. It was the only knock on Pochettino's Spurs, who routinely punched above their weight and bridged the gap from outsiders to contenders.
Alas, this deal proved the albatross around Kane's neck through his prime years as it robbed him of an out if he wanted to look to pastures new in search of silverware. "I just want to win trophies. I don't think there's a day that goes past where I don't wake up and think 'I wanna win something'," he said a year prior to penning this extensive contract. What didn't help was Tottenham going 18 months without making a new signing, effectively ending Pochettino's project even despite making their first-ever Champions League final against all odds.
Kane was a global star and the victim of sporting malpractice. It's probably why Spurs chairman Daniel Levy lost his nerve and fired Pochettino to bring in a big-name manager in Jose Mourinho. The upside of that appointment is it allowed Kane to tap into his limitless playmaking more, with the Portuguese tactician ordering him to drop back into midfield and spread the ball. In 2020-21, Kane became the first player in Premier League history to top the charts for both goals (23) and assists (14). "I've always felt like I'm more than just a striker who has to wait for the ball the whole game. I feel like I can impact the game with my passing and getting into spaces. Jose allowed me and the other attacking players to be kind of a bit more free," Kane has since recalled in hindsight.
The Tottenham circus, which included sacking Mourinho days before a Carabao Cup final and going a couple of months before appointing a successor, had finally put Kane off. He was determined to leave, even supposedly skipping a training session in order to try and force through a move to Manchester City. But with three years left on his contract, Levy didn't entertain offers.
Kane returned to work and ended the following 2021-22 season under the guidance of Antonio Conte, another A-lister who reneged on his intention to use the striker as an out-and-out No.9 because he realised just how much of a waste that would be. "Much praise Harry Kane for his ability to go get the ball and play with the team… He’s good at that too, but it’s in the box where he’s clinical and as a coach, I would always keep him in there because he’s devastating," the Italian said while on punditry duty for Euro 2020.
It was the deadly duo of Kane and Son Heung-min, which became the most prolific in Premier League history, that Tottenham relied too heavily upon again. Conte blew his lid after a 3-3 draw at relegation-battling Southampton and consigned the club to more chaos. In the meantime, Kane had become Spurs' all-time leading scorer, a record previously thought unbreakable given Jimmy Greaves led the way on 268 for over 50 years. Yet he still didn't have a team trophy to show for it.
Now with only a year left on his contract, Kane had the leverage he needed to try again at leaving Tottenham without walking away for nothing. Bayern had first sounded an initial interest in autumn 2022, and after nearly 12 months of pursuit, they landed their man on a club-record deal in August 2023.