Harry Kane's remarkable England record the equal of football's modern greats
It was not cathartic but it was apt that when the moment came Harry Kane scored the goal from the penalty spot.
One hundred and three days after ballooning the ball over the crossbar against France in the World Cup quarter-final (even typing those words brings a shiver, so goodness knows how Kane still feels) the record as England’s all-time leading goalscorer belongs to Harry Edward Kane MBE.
How he will have wished it had been on that traumatic night at the Al-Bayt Stadium in the Qatari desert that he surpassed Wayne Rooney’s record and scored his 54th goal for England. Instead he had stood, disbelieving, almost pulling his shirt over his face to hide his haunted expression and England never recovered as they crashed out of that tournament.
And so, as they say, they go again and against Italy as they set off on the road to qualify for next year’s European Championships in Germany they produced a first-half of the most dazzling attack display in Gareth Southgate’s 82 matches and seven years in charge. Unfortunately it was diametrically opposed to what happened in the second-half.
Before that Kane delivered a superb, all-round performance that was a masterclass in centre-forward play. He helped force the first goal, with a shot deflected to Declan Rice from a corner, and he induced the second as Giovanni Di Lorenzo panicked under pressure from Kane and handled the ball to concede a penalty.
Italy tried to scuff the spot, just as France had done in the World Cup, and tried to put Kane off but it was never going to happen. Not this time. Okay, the stakes were not as high but what would have been the reaction if Kane had missed a second successive penalty for his country?
Instead he was in the zone as he went through his well-practised routine; as he spotted the ball; as he stood over it and as he took six precise steps backwards before composing himself, before smoothing his shorts with his hands and before sending the giant Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma the wrong way as he swept the ball into the net. It was Kane’s 18th penalty for England. How he will have wished it was his 19th .
The goal was scored at the same end in this evocative, decaying stadium that Diego Maradona scored from the spot for Argentina against Italy in the World Cup semi-final in 1990 and Kane set off towards the corner flag in celebration with the other nine England outfield players sprinting to join him.
At 9.29pm local time the record was Kane’s. No Englishman – not Rooney, not Sir Bobby Charlton, not Gary Lineker, not Jimmy Greaves – has ever scored more goals for his country than Kane and it will take something remarkable to take it away from him. Kane scored two minutes after coming on for his debut in 2015 and has carried on.
“An historic goal scored for England by number nine Harry Kane,” said the PA announcer as the importance of the moment sank in and at the age of 29 and having played 88 times for England – it took Rooney 120 caps to reach 53 goals – then Kane can go on and on and create a quite formidable record.
To put it further into context Kane has scored 0.61 goals per game for England. For Cristiano Ronaldo it is 120 goals in 197 games for Portugal also at an average of 0.61; for Lionel Messi it is 98 goals in 172 for Argentina at 0.57 and for Robert Lewandowski it is 78 goals in 138 matches at 0.57. Kane is in extraordinary rarefied company and his average is the equal best.
It also means he can end his career not just as England’s top scorer but as the top scorer in the Premier League with Alan Shearer’s record of 260 goals now firmly in his sights if he stays at Tottenham Hotspur – or, indeed, moves to another English club. Kane has 204.
Even though almost a third of England’s goals scored under Southgate have been claimed by Kane, the good thing is that finally they are less reliant on him for goals with their other attacking players now becoming more potent.
But they absolutely need him. Kane does still feel like the one player in the team who is irreplaceable and as England struggled in the second-half it was the captain who, time and again, provided the relief with his measured hold up play. It is an impressive feature that he is not only England’s best finisher but their best passer and most composed player. He has remarkable presence and amid the chaos he kept his head. Someone had to.
But goals are his currency and it was also appropriate, among England’s worrying inability to gain any control as they went down to 10-men and grimly clung on, that Kane’s goal ultimately proved to be the winner.
