We don’t appreciate Harry Kane, our great ambassador of the game, enough

Britain’s ambassador to Germany is listed as Andrew Mitchell, but it’s Harry Kane who does the real work. German football could be forgiven for not expecting England’s captain to be such an exemplary buy for Bayern Munich in 2023. Supporters there still have to listen to England fans singing “10 German bombers” and banging on about the war.

Even without the tired old WWII drumbeat, German football had no reason to assume Kane would be all their dreams come true. Finisher, leader, team-player and diplomat who is happy in lederhosen and apparently loves the Bayern canteen schnitzel and pretzels: Kane is all of these things. He’s Robert Lewandowski without the traditional striker’s selfishness.

Kane’s capture of Bayern Munich’s heart is a cause for celebration in
the English game. But sometimes you would never know it. Mocked for never having won a trophy before he had the good sense to test himself abroad – and derided for trapping himself at Spurs with unnecessarily long contracts – Kane is the most under-appreciated truly great player in English football history.

A painful suspicion about us (Britain, or perhaps specifically England) is that we pretend to cherish the virtues that Kane exemplifies – then lampoon him for having them: the modesty, the hard work, the absence of flash, all of which Bayern Munich fans adore him for, even if the real wellspring of their love is his incredible flow of goals.

For reasons not entirely clear, YouGov runs a Harry Kane popularity tracker. Somehow, 10% of respondents said they actively dislike him and 26% were neutral. Unless 10% of the UK population are Arsenal fans, how did such a chunk of people acquire an antipathy to someone who goes about his work with so much diligence and class?

From the mouth of other stars, Kane’s pronouncements (“hopefully I can score more goals and win more trophies”) would sound like evasion or disdain for the media. From him it’s almost refreshing because you know he’s just being himself rather than calculating or performative.

But let’s leave aside Kane’s wholesomeness and look at his record. On Tuesday night against Real Madrid in a Champions League quarter-final first leg, on European football’s ultimate testing ground, we saw Harry Kane distilled.

His goal from outside the box to put Bayern 2-0 up 20 seconds after the half-time restart was composed, precise and necessary. It was built from the conviction he has that he can dominate Real Madrid as decisively as he can the lesser Bundesliga teams who have to endure his hat-tricks (10 in the German top flight since 2023).

The numbers, so often used against him by people who disparage the Bundesliga without actually watching it, are astounding: 54 goals this season in 46 appearances for club and country; 11 Champions League goals in 10 matches; 49 in all in this campaign for Bayern, including 31 in the league in just 26 games. It helps a 32-year-old of course to be part of arguably the most potent front-three in club football, with Luis Díaz and Michael Olise.

Another reason Bavarians revere him is his willingness to labour in other areas of the field beyond the No 9 role.

For more than a decade now he has maintained a prolific pattern.Kane has 78 England goals – 25 more than the next best, Wayne Rooney. His 134 in 137 outings for Bayern sit alongside his 280 goals for Tottenham, 213 of them in the Premier League, where Alan Shearer could yet kiss goodbye to his record of 260.

Here too a correction has been necessary. When Kane signed for Bayern there were those who called it a kind of sabbatical before the inevitable return and assault on Shearer’s record. A move to Real Madrid or Barcelona would have been seen as the zenith of his career. Bayern, on the other hand, were patronised as a soft option.

There’s a flaw there. If the Bundesliga is a one (or sometimes two) horse race, it follows that the Champions League is harder for them to win – as it was for Paris Saint-Germain before Luis Enrique came along – because the domestic league competition provides inadequate practice for Europe’s top competition.

By that reasoning, Kane made it easier for himself to win Bundesliga titles but harder to scale Europe’s peak. Either way, his goal and his calming influence after returning from minor ankle trouble helped Bayern to a 2-1 first-leg lead for the return in Munich on Wednesday.

When Kane “went away”, as Joe Cole put it this week on commentary, I ventured the suggestion that it was good for English football to have the England captain playing for Bayern Munich. “No it’s not, because we won’t get to watch him in the Premier League any more,” a friend said. “How is that good for English football?” He had a point.

Yet the glow from Germany reaches the English game and should be cherished. A Champions League title and/or defining World Cup performance for England would be a just reward for more than a decade of excellence, with only the odd England lull and tournament let-down to reduce its shine.

Some people are too busy trying to be funny on social media to see what’s in front of them and acknowledge its simple truth.

There are no paragons in elite sport, but Harry Kane comes pretty close.

Photograph by Alberto Gardin/Eurasia Sport Images/Getty Images

Harry Kane’s 213 league goals for Tottenham Hotspur are the most a player has scored in the Premier League for one club.

He holds the record for the most Premier League goals scored in a calendar year, netting 39 times in 2017, across two seasons.

He holds the record for the most consecutive seasons to have scored at least 15 Premier League goals. He did this in nine seasons for Tottenham, from 2014-15 to 2022-23.

Kane is the first player in Bundesliga history to finish as top scorer in both of his first two seasons. He is on course to make it three out of three.

He has scored 18 hat-tricks across the Premier League and Bundesliga. He has also scored five for England.

He is the England men’s national team’s all-time top goalscorer with 78, and the highest-scoring English player in the Champions League, with 51.

He has scored more than 500 career goals for club and country so far.