Stop acting and start playing, Neymar told
Harry Kane is a composite of all the great England strikers, with Gary Lineker’s finishing, Alan Shearer’s character and Michael Owen’s greed for goals. None of those fell in love with the World Cup quite so quickly or were inspirational captains from their first kick of the tournament.
Kane’s debut World Cup is also his first in a role the English have burdened with an imperial mystique. In the mother country, the captain ‘‘leads’’ the lads into action with jaw set and sinews stiffened. Russia 2018’s leading scorer has done a bit of this, but not with officer-class posturing. Aside from his goals, England manager Gareth Southgate’s chosen one has led with his infatuation with what World Cups are and what they might do for him and his career.
Many with a club record like his approach this stage cautiously. They know international football can damage as well as immortalise. After France ‘98, David Beckham was hung in effigy outside a London boozer. Now Kane is having pubs named after him. Not the ‘‘Kane Arms’’, but certainly ‘‘The Golden Boot’’, a hostelry rebranded in anticipation of him finishing top scorer in Russia.
He leads that field heading into the quarterfinal with six, two ahead of Belgium’s Romelu Lukaku.
He is not smacking them in from open play, but his header in added-time against Tunisia was a masterpiece of ball-burying, and his penalty technique is an attraction in itself. Kane dispatches the ball with conviction, and often vicious curl and power. There is never a trace of hesitation or doubt. He expects and intends to score. These are infectious qualities – and rare. When Southgate talks of ditching the past and playing with freedom, he has no better basis for that mantra than the self-possession displayed by Kane, the right choice as captain, as it turns out, despite the general reluctance to appoint ‘‘selfish’’ strikers. After a decade of duopoly, the Fifarun vote to crown football’s best player finally seems open to third parties after Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo left the World Cup early.
Neymar must help Brazil lift the trophy next week if he wants to join the greats, according to the World Cup winner who first took home Fifa’s top individual award.
Cutting out the play-acting would also help Neymar win votes, 1990 World Cup winner Lothar Matthaeus said.
‘‘We need players like Neymar,’’ said the former West Germany captain, who won the inaugural Fifa world player award in 1991. ‘‘But not with this acting what he was doing now in each game.’’
A debate about Neymar faking injury and over-reacting to tackles is polarising opinion between European outrage and Brazilian defence.
Former England forward Alan
Great captains appear in many forms, but there is none more effective than the one who wins the game for you and enthuses about the task.
Kane’s boyish appetite for the glamour and scale of World Cup action was foreseeable when England flew to Russia. But you can never be sure it will turn out this way. Shearer called Neymar’s behaviour ‘‘absolutely pathetic’’ in a British broadcast this week. Neymar’s theatrics distracted from Brazil’s 2-0 win over Mexico that took the five-time champion into the quarterfinals.
‘‘The criticism is nonsense,’’ Brazil great Ronaldo said yesterday. ‘‘I am against all these opinions you mentioned. I don’t think referees have been protecting him enough.’’
Ronaldo, a three-time winner of Fifa’s best player award, and Matthaeus spoke at a briefing about the individual accolade that Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have won five times each in the past decade. With Portugal and Argentina both leaving Russia in the round of 16, the award seems open for a new winner to emerge.
‘‘Sure, Neymar – when he will win the World Cup,’’ said Matthaeus. ‘‘You have to win titles with your team.’’