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It’s been a long time coming, but finally Harry Kane has his hands on a piece of silverware as Bayern Munich have won the Bundesliga title. Undoubtedly one of the finest strikers of his generation, just why has it taken him so long? And is this the start of an immensely successful period for the England captain? Matt Frohlich is joined by Ed McCambridge to discuss all this and more.
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And I think when he does hang up his boots, no matter how many trophies he gets at Bayern
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or whether or not he breaks Shearer's record in England, he will go down as an absolute all-time great
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And I'm talking of any nation, an all-time great footballer. It's been a long time coming, but finally Harry Kane has his hands on a piece of silverware
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Undoubtedly one of the finest strikers of his generation, just why has it taken him so long
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And is this the start of an immensely successful period for the England captain
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I'm Matt Froelich for 442 and this is the story of Harry Kane's first trophy
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So if you're aware of Kane's ability but maybe unaware of his career, the two don't necessarily match up
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you may be asking yourself at this point, why on earth has it taken so long
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Well, there's plenty of theories to look into, but the long and short of it is, is that he was playing in the Tottenham team where for one reason or another
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the big games, the big moments just happened to pass him and the club by
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Common schools of thought often ridicule him for not scoring in the semifinals or the finals that he and the club found themselves in
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Or equally to put the blame at the doorstep of the club itself with their recent history of not quite seizing the moment
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But in the fairness of a balanced argument, there are two sides to this coin
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The other side says that one player doesn't make a team and sometimes you just have to admit when you've been beaten by a better opponent
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For example, both Mo Salah and Thierry Henry have terrible records in finals
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with just one goal and one assist each in nine and ten finals respectively
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But they've been part of fantastic teams and as such can proudly boast a full trophy cabinet
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As for admitting the opposition are better, Spurs, with Kane, met the likes of Man City, Chelsea and Liverpool
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in their quest for glory over the last decade. Sides either notoriously difficult to beat or riding the wave of the impossible turned possible like Leicester City
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Still, to score so many goals in an underachieving Spurs side is nothing short of miraculous
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You know, scoring that number of goals. I think there was a season three or four years ago where he scored the most Premier League goals
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and got the most assists in a single season. That right there is Ed McCambridge, our German-based 4-4-2 journalist
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Bundesliga expert and, according to himself, not a bad football player either
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Which is astonishing at Tottenham. I mean, it's all well and good doing it for Manchester City or Liverpool
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when they're getting nearly 100 points a season. but he was playing for a Tottenham team that often wasn competing at the top end of the Premier League and he was consistently the best player in the league one of the toughest leagues in the world as we know he scored similar numbers of goals to the likes of Benzema and Lewandowski
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if not Ronaldo and Messi, but certainly in that second category. With Kane's eventual move to Bayern last summer at age 30
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it seemed like he was escaping the judgement in the Premier League and was nailed on to win a trophy
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Well, sort of. In fact, as luck would have it, and throwing back to what I mentioned about Kane
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finding himself in tough or improbable situations, his first season at Bayern Munich saw Bayer Leverkusen
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put together the Bundesliga's first ever unbeaten title victory. This freak incident aside, though, a trophy did seem inevitable for him
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Since he's joined the club, there's been a fair amount of banter, particularly from those in England
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about the fact that it's taken him this long to actually win a trophy
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I mean, this was supposed to be the banker. He was supposed to move straight to Bayern and finally break his silverware duck
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and get his hands on some trophies, and he didn't in his first season. So there's been a bit of banter around that. Obviously, that will go away now
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But inside of Germany, from the get-go, it's been overwhelmingly positive. I mean, since the day he signed, fans and experts and pundits have been so excited
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that this world-class player in his prime has swapped the Premier League for a Bundesliga side
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Now, as England captain, playing in Germany, the old arch-rivals of English football
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you'd think that Kane was in for a little bit of a frosty reception. But as Ed alluded to, they actually quite like him at Bayern Munich
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And certainly this lack of winning mentality that he was accused of by some corners of the English media was way off the mark
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Yeah, definitely. I mean, on the pitch, he's massively popular with his coaches, with his teammates
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I mean, Thomas Tuchel, the coach who managed to lure him over from Tottenham
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and also Vincent Kompany, his current coach, have talked about what a professional he is
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the way he handles himself for training, the way he prepares for games
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and the other leaders in the dressing room, the likes of Mamou Noyer, the club captain
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Thomas Muller, who's leaving the club at the end of the season, and Joshua Kimmich, the real leaders in that dressing room
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have spoken about the character that he brings to the club. And we're talking about the sort of thing that Roy Keane likes to bang on about
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being in the trenches, being the man to rely upon when the chips are down. And he's produced in these big moments
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And Mamou Noyer has spoken about this very English sense of humour that Keane has brought to the club and he got involved with all the classic cultural things that go on at Bayern the wearing of the Lederhosen at the Oktoberfest day
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I know his children are very happy at school in Bavaria and they're learning German. And don't forget that Bayern actually also brought over Eric Dier
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who's a very good player, let's not mug Eric Dier off, but he may not have got a move to Bayern if it wasn't for Harry Kane
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So they've done basically everything they possibly can to accommodate him, the club and his teammates
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And he is a hugely popular figure of Bayern as well as a brilliant player. Now, getting on with your teammates is definitely an important factor in success
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And it's something that Harry Kane needed to do if he was to surmount the insurmountable task, replacing Robert Lewandowski
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The now Barcelona man scored an incredible 344 goals in 375 games for Bayern, winning absolutely everything there was to win multiple times
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In fact, he left the club having won the league in all eight of his seasons there, including the treble in 2020
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So the main aim for Kane was to bring a similar quantity of goals. But as has been clear throughout his career, there's more to him than meets the eye
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His main objective was to replace the goals scored by Robert Lewandowski, which was never going to be easy
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But he's done that to a large degree. And on top of that, he's added a certain level of creativity
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I mean, he's hit double figures for assists in all competitions across both campaigns
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and everyone at Bayern's really appreciate this range of passing that we know he had from Tottenham
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his tendency to drop deep and bring out the best in others. Zane in particular has really benefited
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but the other wingers as well the likes of Kingsley Coman and Michael Alisse
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who's had a brilliant first season at Bayern they're all thriving thanks to Harry Kane's movement
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and his ability to bring others into play and I think a lot of Bayern fans were really crushed when Robert Lewandowski left the club
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because obviously the amount of goals he scored But there is a sense, I think, among the fan base that the current number nine is a better all round player and he's bringing the best out of his teammates
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A lot of Bayern's play was geared just towards Robert Lewandowski scoring goals when he was at the club
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And now there's more of a share around and that's a lot to do with Kane. So with all the things that Kane can and has demonstrated on the pitch, the goal scoring, the creativity, the leadership
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I'd be inclined to think he actually puts the big successes like the Champions League on his own shoulders as much as the fans and his teammates turn to him for inspiration But as it turns out this reliance on him as a central striker the figurehead of the Bayern attack is nothing new to the club whatsoever
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Well, Bayern, more so than almost any other club I can think of, have always relied massively on a single number nine
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I mean, you know, they've had the likes of Lewandowski, obviously Gerard Müller, the brilliant player in the 60s and 70s
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Roy McKay, Giovanni Elba, Jürgen Klinsmann, Gomez, Mandzukic. they love this big powerful number nine so they're always going to rely heavily on Harry Kane in all
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their competitions. Next season it'll be the exact same they'll be relying on Kane to produce the
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goods both in the league and in the Champions League and cup competitions. So much at Bayern
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is geared around getting their number nine to score goals and so obviously the success and
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failure of every season and every competition will largely rest on Harry Kane's shoulders
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So let's throw a hypothetical out there. Harry Kane and Bayern Munich return to the top of German
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football with the league, the cup in the next few years, maybe even European football too, if they can win a Champions League. Does Harry Kane then stay and continue to win more and more
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and more trophies? Or is there the chance of a romantic return to the Premier League at some
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point? Well, I think there's always going to be talk of a return to England. That always happens
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with English players. You know, Jude Bellingham, will he come, you know, will he leave Real Madrid and come to the Premier League someday? Even more so in Harry Kane's case, because there is a sense
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that he's got this unfinished business in English football. He was pretty close to breaking Shearer's all-time Premier League
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goal-scoring record. It would still be within his grasp if he came back to England soon-ish
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So that talk's never going to go away. In terms of leaving Bayern, the question I would ask is
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why would you bother? Why would he leave? I mean, maybe he'll come back to the Premier League someday
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but in the short term, over the next two or three seasons, what would be the point
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I think he's a fit guy he can probably carry on playing
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for another 4 or 5 years at the top level and where better to play than Bayern Munich
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where like I say success is almost guaranteed Well regardless of where Kane's
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future footballing success lies one thing can't be taken away from him the fact that now at long last
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he has got his hands on some silverware that an outstanding career has thoroughly deserved
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That's all from me for today don't forget to hit that subscribe button for all of the content that myself and 442
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two have got coming out in the near future. But until then, I'll see you in the next video
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