In a week of memories of Munich, tales of two Harrys.
First, Harry Gregg on his settee in Castlerock pretending to be back in goal as Gerd Müller approaches. Gregg is poised, ready to make a save, then realises the ball is already past him.
“See Müller?” Gregg says with a mixture of admiration and exasperation, “I’d be lying on the ground saying: ‘Can you at least try to make it look hard?’”
Second, Harry Kane, now a man of Munich. Kane has scored 28 goals in 27 appearances for Bayern Munich since his €110 million transfer from Tottenham last August.
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Kane has made such an impact in six months in Germany that comparisons have been made with Robert Lewandowski – and the great Müller.
When those names were put to him last week, Kane smiled.
“It means I’m doing something right,” he said.
This is underselling it somewhat. Kane is doing almost everything right, tactically, competitively, in terms of leadership and of course in front of goal. A player and personality who carries a quintessential Englishness about him – Harry Hotspur, England captain, face of the ‘English’ Premier League – has become, in Germany, ‘King Kane’.
So quickly, he is a huge figure for Bayern, the league and the country. Kane won the Bundesliga’s goal of the month in October, in November and then in December. He is scoring a goal every 73.8 minutes in the league. Bayern’s new number nine has sold more shirts than any player previously in Germany.
He was introduced by the club as 009, a James Bond figure, licensed to shoot. He has been the subject of glowing editorials in the German media. “Mister 100%” was a front page in Kicker magazine in November. It marked Kane’s first 100 days in the league, as if he was JFK or Angela Merkel. It was his sixth appearance on the cover. There is a phenomenon, Kanemania, worthy of Messi or Ronaldo.
It can all seem breathless and out of sync with Kane’s restrained public persona; yet his season, his 2024, may only have begun.
Tonight on the banks of the Rhine, north of Cologne in Leverkusen, Kane takes Bayern to the Bundesliga leaders, Bayer 04. It looks a pivotal match in the outcome of the league title race.
Next Wednesday Bayern go to Lazio in the last 16 of the Champions League, a trophy Bayern won – (un)memorably? – for the sixth time in the first Covid-19 final in August 2020 against Paris St Germain.
“Kind of wide open,” is Kane’s assessment of the last 16.
After that it is Euro 2024 in Germany with England one of the favourites. The coincidences Kane will have noted are the tournament’s final in Berlin and this season’s Champions League final being in London at Wembley.
Kane connects the two now and, if he sees out year two of a four-year contract, he will also have mentally lodged the venue for next season’s Champions League final – Munich. (And following Thursday’s draw, a Nations League game in Dublin.)
“The personal stuff is great,” he said of the goalscoring records he is breaking and the mentions of Müller and Lewandowski, “but I’ve made it clear I want to be winning team trophies. That’s one of the things missing from my career so far.”
It is why, after all, having spent 14 years boy and man at Tottenham, he left the club last summer.
Spurs had started 2023 fifth in the Premier League and were still in the Champions League and FA Cup. They, he, had plenty to consider. But Antonio Conte, Kane’s seventh permanent manager at the club, was losing his grip and this weekend last season Spurs lost 4-1 at Leicester, who would be relegated.
Three days later there was a 1-0 loss at AC Milan, a deficit Spurs could not recover in the second leg. A fortnight on and Tottenham were bundled out of the FA Cup at Sheffield United, with Kane left on the bench until 20 minutes into the second half.
Then, with Conte gone, they were 5-0 down after 21 minutes at St James’ Park and eventually trailed in eighth in the Premier League. Kane’s Tottenham faith was shaken, understandably.
His options had narrowed though – Manchester City had recruited Erling Haaland, United were all over the place.
A move to Germany came late-ish, but Bayern, having won the Bundesliga every season since 2012-13, offer the sort of certainty unavailable at Tottenham.
Even so, as Kane started with a goal on his league debut at Werder Bremen, he may have felt a pang as Ange Postecoglou hit the ground running stylishly at Spurs. Kane was living in a hotel then with his father Pat and brother Charlie and will have heard all the noise from north London about Big Ange’s revitalising of Kane’s club. What if he had stayed?
But since the birth of their fourth child, the Kanes have moved as a family to a Munich suburb. Gradually, then suddenly, Bavaria has felt like home, or a home from home. His older children are in school, have gone skiing in the Alps. He and Thomas Muller are golf partners. Eric Dier has joined him in Bavaria.
“I feel in a really good place physically and mentally,” Kane said last week during a series of interviews. He is 30 but neither looks it nor plays like it. “Slowly but surely it starts to feel like home.”
He acknowledged it had not all been straightforward, no matter how easy he now makes it appear on the pitch. He referred back to loan moves as a teenager from Spurs to Norwich and Leicester and the resilience required when you are not setting those places on fire. Being Harry Kane in 2012, -13, -14 was very different from being Harry Kane in 2024.
Those memories, which are fresh to him if not us, mean he will not be taking anything for granted. Bayern’s run-in begins this evening and for a team that lost at home to Werder three weeks ago there can be no complacency.
Bayer Leverkusen are able to point to an unbeaten season thus far. Xabi Alonso, as Liverpool can see, is having a comparable effect to Kane. In his first full season, Alonso has already pushed Leverkusen past last season’s total points tally. Should they overcome Bayern, they will be five points ahead. Even a draw would leave them top, and with six of the bottom eight clubs yet to be played.
Leverkusen are also still in the Europa League having won all six of their group games. This could be a year when no one uses the label ‘Neverkusen’.
But then here comes Harry Kane, King Kane, tormaschine.
