'Assassin' Harry Kane nears greatness by scoring when it truly matters
Five minutes had elapsed since ‘Football’s Coming Home’ had stopped booming out through the sound system, but one lone England player was still out on the pitch, taking the plaudits from thousands of elated fans and outlining why it had been one of the best moments of his entire career.
“It’s incredible - I've never seen Wembley like this in an England shirt,” said Harry Kane, who had also just become the first player to score 30 goals at the new national stadium. “We felt their presence. That’s what we need everywhere we go. We wanted to make them proud. We wanted to do this so badly.”
To win any game from 1-0 down after 77 minutes was of course a triumph of willpower, effort and collective spirit, but this was also about something even more exciting. It is the development since the World Cup of a team now actually good enough to beat some of the very best teams in the world; and a striker in Kane delivering in a way that reinforces his status among the absolute elite.
“An assassin,” says his club manager Mauricio Pochettino. Scoring copious numbers of goals is one thing, but to also deliver when your team most needs you is generally the point at which the great separate from the good. Kane is not there yet, but this was further evidence of that potential.
He had already made England’s equaliser with a finish that was dribbling towards an empty net when Jesse Lingard made sure but the second, coming just seven minutes later, was quite brilliant. Not simply for how he even reached Ben Chilwell’s cross with his fully outstretched foot, but how he then still had both the skill and presence of mind to direct the ball inches inside Nikola Kalinic’s post.
Kane’s instant and instinctive reaction - double clenched fist and roar of delight - told you what it all meant. The England captain really was not exaggerating when he recently admitted that he used to cry whenever England lost. Kane also said that he might shed a tear should England ever again win anything and victory in the once derided Uefa Nations League is now only 180 minutes away. Yes, we all know that this is the Carabao Cup of international football but for a young team like England, who are now really knocking at the door, the potential stepping stone should not be underestimated. Sir Alex Ferguson, whose last great Manchester United team began their resurgence in the League Cup, would tell you that.
We also know that this will provide only limited consolation for losing a World Cup semi-final against Croatia by the exact same scoreline four months ago, but it was the wider performance that provided most hope.
England deserved to lose in Moscow. Croatia had most of the ball and double the shots. The stats were reversed here and, with Kane the attacking spearhead, we saw the emergence of a team that dominated possession against even the likes of Luka Modric, Ivan Perisic and Nikola Vlasic. As one Twitter user put it: “When did Fabian Delph become Iniesta?”
It was a midfield platform which also greatly benefited Kane in contrast to the semi-final in July when, even allowing for that one clear missed chance, he was generally living off relative scraps. His wider tally for the season now stands at 11 goals in 21 games. It is not quite the ratio we have come to expect but should also be considered in the broader context of an increased sense that his overall contribution has grown. Kane himself rated last month’s 3-2 win against Spain among the very best performances of his career, even though he did not score, and this ended a wait for England of seven games and more than 700 minutes since his last international goal.
Both Pochettino and Gareth Southgate naturally agree that Kane cannot be judged with a simplistic reference only to his goalscoring ratio and it was noticeable here that the England manager should emphasise his wider importance in holding the ball up.
Pochettino recently put it even more starkly. “He is so obsessed with scoring that sometimes he needs more freedom not to be obsessed. He is starting to be really mature. Kane is English and sometimes you push him to the sky and paradise... and then you put him on the outside.” This was one of those paradise moments.
