How Harry Kane bucked every trend to become England's superstar

Résumé détaillé

England’s greatest goalscorer makes yet more history tonight

Jose Mourinho once sat with Harry Kane in the manager’s office at Tottenham’s training ground and explained the difference between the two men.

Kane was a much younger 26-year-old then, the reigning World Cup Golden Boot winner but not considered truly world class outside of England. A prolific striker for club and country, nothing more.

“I have no doubt: you are a winner,” said Mourinho, on his second day in the Spurs job. He felt, though, that “the movie stars of football belong to other places”, that Kane was no superstar. In one of those rare moments when Mourinho brought the topic of conversation back to himself, he insisted that, by contrast, “my dimension is universal”.

In the intervening six years, Kane has done so by himself, through dogged determination, constant refining of his craft, and the relentlessness that staying at the top of the sport for so long necessitates, not needing the help of Mourinho or anyone else.

Against Croatia tonight, Kane don England colours for a record 126th time, 98 as captain, as he overtakes Peter Shilton’s tally. He will do so 17 days after beating Kylian Mbappe and Lamine Yamal to win the Ballon d’Or aged 33 years young, crowned the best footballer in the world.

He scored 73 goals for club and country last season, goalscoring of such mechanical, clockwork regularity it saw him surpass Cristiano Ronaldo’s best-ever campaign. Kane’s tally marked the second-greatest season of goalscoring in football’s modern history, trailing only the superhuman tally of 82 goals in 69 games posted by Lionel Messi in 2011-12. He had mentioned wanting to emulate Messi and Ronaldo in that 2019 heart-to-heart with Mourinho.

Yet stats have not always been kind to Kane. No matter the endless individual honours, the reminders of an empty trophy cabinet stalked him for years until his Bundesliga title win with Bayern last year.

The latter of those two Golden Boots, which he shared with five other players, arrived at Euro 2024, where he looked out of sorts…

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