Captain Kane revelling in glamour of leading his country on biggest stage
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, 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 quarter-finals. James Rodriguez won the gilded slipper four years ago with six – the mark Kane is on now from 273 minutes of action, two ahead of Belgium’s Romelu Lukaku, who has played through 239 minutes. Lineker was the first Englishman to reach half a dozen, in 1986. Kane has scored three penalties (not including the shoot-out against Colombia), a brace against Tunisia and a hat-trick in the Panama game.
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 selfpossession displayed by Kane, the right choice as captain, as it turns out, despite the general reluctance to appoint “selfish” strikers.
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. Some, in their first World Cup, recoil from the hugeness of it all, and fixate on the isolation from home, the “pressure”. Kane disclosed last week that he was coming off social media, but not to escape abuse.
He was simply removing one more possible distraction. His mind is self-trained to seek out marginal improvements, logs for the fire of his ambition. From the moment he arrived, Kane seemed to scan an unfamiliar scene for ways of increasing his chance of success – all the while with an uncomplicated, cheery outlook.
As soon as he saw that it might go well, Kane grabbed the opportunity, thus transmitting optimism to his team-mates. Any side who look ahead through the tangle of shirts and see Kane hunting for space, linking play and harassing central defenders, are bound to feel better about spending weeks in a Russian forest. One of the earliest signs that Kane had brought his confidence from Premier League football with him was when we asked him how he felt about Cristiano Ronaldo’s early hat-trick against Spain. Kane said: “For sure, he’s put me under a bit of pressure.” Not the reply of 1978),