Harry Kane stood on the touchline, soaking it all in. He paused his round of interviews to listen to the noise of the stadium, the raucous rendition of Sweet Caroline. He smiled, shook his head in bemused awe, and continued.
Later he stood with his family. They couldn’t hug, couldn’t even touch, so Kane remained distanced again. Elated and beaming, but nevertheless apart. And that must be how Gareth Southgate sees his captain. A man apart.
When England’s team was announced on Tuesday with Dominic Calvert-Lewin not even on the substitutes’ bench, this much was obvious. Calvert-Lewin made the squad to provide an alternative to Kane. Southgate’s decision as good as confirmed he is unconvinced one exists.
Harry Kane took in the Wembley atmosphere after England beat Germany 2-0 at Euro 2020
Kane got off the mark at the tournament by scoring England’s second goal in their last-16 tie
Sven Goran Eriksson had a list of players he believed were irreplaceable for England. Wayne Rooney, Michael Owen, Steven Gerrard, David Beckham.
If Southgate has similar fears, chief among them would be for England without Kane. So his hope now must be that Kane’s goal against Germany inspires a more consistent run.
That is how it has been throughout his career. Feast or famine. Yet when the goals come, they come in torrents.
- 10 in 10 (September 17, 2020, to October 18, 2020)
- 11 in 10 (March 7, 2021, to April 16, 2021)
- 16 in 17 (August 10, 2019, to October 27, 2019)
- 11 in 11 (November 14, 2019, to December 28, 2019)
- 13 in 14 (December 23, 2018, to March 25, 2019)
- 17 in 13 (September 1, 2017, to October 22, 2017)
- 17 in 14 (December 23, 2017, to February 25, 2018)
And he cares about every goal, never worry about that. Jose Mourinho said that Kane would have been perfectly happy with 1-0 against Germany and Raheem Sterling the only name on the scoresheet and there is no doubt he is a team player.
Kane headed in Jack Grealish’s cross – and data shows his England goals come in bunches
Yet a vignette from the day before the round-of-16 fixture suggested another side to his character, one that will have not viewed his 332 tournament minutes without scoring quite so philosophically.
Kane was asked about penalty shootouts and, specifically, how he had been faring against Jordan Pickford in training.
He began to answer — ‘Jordan’s obviously a great…’ — then thought better of it. No striker likes to recall the ones he missed or had saved, even in practice. So Kane chose instead to revisit a happier moment from his past.
‘I’ve had one penalty against him in my career,’ he said, ‘and I managed to score that, so…’
And there it is. The man who doesn’t care who scores remembering an event from more than five years ago, when Pickford was playing for a club that now resides in League One.
Kane (right) was also full of praise for goalkeeper Jordan Pickford (left) who he says is ‘a great’
January 16, 2016: Tottenham 4 Sunderland 1. Centre half Jan Kirchhoff brought down Danny Rose and Kane stepped up to take the penalty, with Tottenham already leading 3-1 and just 11 minutes remaining.
‘I still give him a bit of stick for that,’ said Kane of Pickford’s doomed attempt — on what was also the latter’s Premier League debut, at the age of 21. Pickford wasn’t a full international, had made his Under 21 debut less than six months earlier, and was coming off loan spells with Darlington, Alfreton, Burton Albion, Carlisle, Bradford and Preston North End.
Yet Kane still remembers the goalkeeper he beat that day. All things considered, then, yes, he does seem to take rather a keen interest in who puts the ball in the net and how. Southgate will certainly hope this continues. In the build-up to the European Championship in 1996, as a member of Terry Venables’ squad, he will have seen first-hand how not scoring affected Alan Shearer.
It was always Venables’ intention to rest Shearer for some of the friendly matches with so many talented reserves — not least Robbie Fowler and Les Ferdinand — around the squad.
Kane’s summer has been compared to Alan Shearer’s at Euro 96 when he won the Golden Boot
Yet in 12 games across 21 months, Shearer failed to score. Venables was worried if he left the striker out it would seem like he had lost faith and dent his confidence further. He determined that the moment Shearer got his goal, he could rest him next game — but the goal never came, even in a friendly against China. But Shearer found the net against Switzerland when the tournament began and never looked back — finishing top scorer with five goals.
How Southgate must wish for the same from his striker. One of the many positives to come out of the victory over Germany was that the tournament may stop weighing so heavily on Kane, and he might be sparked into a scoring run that will help propel England to the final.
‘Any centre forward needs that,’ said Southgate. ‘I played with Alan Shearer in ’96 and remember the change in him once he got that goal. I remember being in China, too, and it was another match without a goal and you could sense how it was for him, so there will be a high release for Harry, no question.’
Ukraine are the next opponents. They have kept just a single clean sheet in 16 competitive internationals since October 2019, and none in this tournament. In many ways, the stage is perfectly set for England’s striker — but with that comes a different type of tension.
Kane’s focus now turns to the challenge of Ukraine in the Euro 2020 quarter-final on Saturday
‘The life of a centre forward is a lot of pressure,’ said Southgate. ‘There is a huge expectation and I think it is important as a manager to understand that and have empathy. Although at times it will feel from the outside that it is a glamorous position to be in, and strikers certainly get paid well, but with it comes immense expectation
‘Not only is there the public expectation but there is an inherent desire and drive centre forwards have. If you win the game and they don’t score, they are irritated. They cannot help it. That is the mind-set. So the win over Germany will have been a perfect day for Harry. He wants the team to win more than anything else, but for the team to win and him to score, without a doubt that will put a bigger smile on his face.
‘His goalscoring record with us has been immense and so important, but we cannot just expect Harry to be the one to deliver.’
Gareth Southgate (right) understands the pressure Kane is under but wants more from othres
That hasn’t been the case at this tournament. Sterling has shouldered more than his share of the load. And Kane’s game is about more than just finishing, as Jack Grealish pointed out.
‘There is so much tactical stuff going on around Harry,’ he said. ‘Plus, he’s our best player so teams are going to double up on him and try to get him out the game.’
Yet that applies to every opponent. All those teams who couldn’t stop him scoring in floods in the past. Crystal Palace, Dinamo Zagreb, Aston Villa, Albania, Poland, Newcastle and Everton, in his most recent run; Lokomotiv Plovdiv, Southampton, KF Shkendija, Maccabi Haifa, Manchester United and West Ham in the one prior to that.
And a knockout victory over mighty Germany is a good place for any run to start. But, knowing Kane, on previous evidence it will not be where this one finishes.
