Harry Kane still remembers the first professional goal he ever scored. It was a first-time shot at the far post for Leyton Orient against Sheffield Wednesday in January 2011.
‘I will never forget that one,’ Kane told this newspaper two seasons ago.
On loan from Tottenham, a career of any sorts in the game seemed the limit of his horizons at that time. And though he did receive some subsequent support from Tottenham managers Andre Villas-Boas and Tim Sherwood, the man who he really has to thank for his subsequent emergence at the highest level is the man who faces the biggest decision of all ahead of Saturday’s Champions League final.
Harry Kane is technically fit to start in Madrid but he hasn’t played for Tottenham since April 9
Mauricio Pochettino faces a huge call as to whether he should start the England captain
Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool team virtually picks itself. Mauricio Pochettino, on the other hand, must decide whether he has the courage to leave out the player he, more than anyone, has moulded in to the most feared centre forward in England.
Kane is technically fit to play. After suffering an ankle injury against Manchester City on April 9, he has been confident enough to run straight lines in training for some time.
In recent days he has joined in full contact sessions and has even publicly declared himself available.
But to be fit is not to be match fit. Kane has missed nine matches and is thought of at the club as a player who needs two or three games to find his levels again after time out. On Saturday night in Spain it will be nudging 30 degrees at kick off.
Son Hueng-min has excelled in the absence of Kane and showed Spurs can cope without him
‘The players don’t know the team,’ Pochettino said. ‘We have one training session now and then we decide. It is not easy but we have all the information, we know every detail, these decisions are painful and you can only choose 11. It is a tough decision, it’s painful, but it is my job.’
Common sense would suggest Kane starts on the bench but this is Pochettino’s Jose Mourinho moment, his opportunity to use the greatest club competition in football to elevate himself to the top tier of European coaches.
If Pochettino can upset Liverpool, he will become the most powerful coach Tottenham have ever had.
His bargaining power with chairman Daniel Levy would shift irrevocably while should he really wish to move on — something he has hinted at recently — his status would become blue chip overnight.
On the contrary, if he becomes the coach who lost the European Cup final with his best player left on the bench then that leaves a different kind of impression altogether.
Whatever Pochettino is thinking, Klopp would like to know. Spurs are a different team with Kane in the line-up.
They play a different way, more direct, and he has hurt Liverpool before, most notably when orchestrating a 4-1 win at Wembley in October 2017 and converting a late penalty when the teams drew a controversial game 2-2 at Anfield later that season.
Lucas Moura scored a hat-trick in the semi-finals against Ajax and will be competing to start
‘You have to have big balls to do that,’ was Pochettino’s assessment of his star player that day.
That game was the first time Kane had come up against a Liverpool team with Virgil van Dijk in it, indeed the Dutchman conceded that penalty. Certainly Liverpool are a much better defensive team — the best in the Premier League — now that Van Dijk is involved but Spurs feel the 27-year-old can be dragged out of position by balls in behind his two full-backs, something that would theoretically leave Kane space in which to work up against Joel Matip, a player he was worried previously.
On Friday, as he spoke at the Wanda Metropolitano, Klopp didn’t attempt to choose Pochettino’s team for him.
Previously he has said of Kane this year: ‘What a fantastic striker. It is difficult for one defender alone to stop a world class striker like him.’
It says much for Tottenham’s progress that Pochettino even has a decision to make.
Tottenham were once dubbed ‘the Harry Kane team’ by Pep Guardiola but that has changed
Had this game taken place a year ago there would have been no question that Kane would have been straight in the team. Pep Guardiola subsequently apologised for calling Spurs the ‘Harry Kane team’ in 2017 but at the time it felt as though the Manchester City manager had a point.
Now they are less reliant on him. The continued growth of Heung-min Son, the emergence of the Brazilian Lucas Moura, and even the peculiar nuisance value of Fernando Llorente, have given Spurs a dangerous look whether Kane is in the team or not.
In his absence, for example, Pochettino’s side scored 14 times, Moura’s hat-trick in the second leg of the Champions League semi-final at Ajax being the most notable individual contribution.
It is thought Moura could be the one to miss out and that will be tough on the Brazilian.
Liverpool are the favourites for the final meaning Pochettino’s men can play without pressure
The 26-year-old has been Tottenham’s form player towards the back end of the season.
Tottenham should play without pressure and they should use that to their advantage.
This feels like a European final Tottenham can hope to win while Liverpool really must do so if they are not to become known as serial runners-up under Klopp.
Kane trained fully on Friday night and looked for all the world as though he is ready to play in the biggest club game of his life.
A goal scorer accustomed to big occasions, last summer’s World Cup golden boot winner will not take kindly if he is asked to begin among the substitutes.
When Pochettino removed the combustible Emmanuel Adebayor from the Tottenham team to make room for an up and coming Kane for a game at home to Stoke City in November 2014, his team lost the match 2-1.
‘That was a brave move,’ Kane subsequently reflected.
In Madrid, Pochettino faces a much bigger call. The Tottenham manager is unlikely to have lost any sleep over making it.