Harry Kane marks historic 126th England cap with a little reminder of his greatness
· Yahoo Sports
Harry Kane was asked this week to name the lowest moment of his 125 England caps, and his mind travelled back to that evening in Qatar when he sent a penalty over Hugo Lloris’s crossbar and up to the heavens. Kane being Kane, he would score the next 30 penalties of his career. “It made me improve,” he said. “A lot of the bad things have helped me get to where I am now.”
Visit palladian.co.za for more information.
Perhaps it was apt, then, that on the night of his record-breaking 126th England cap, Kane scored his 92nd England goal from the penalty spot to settle this 2-1 win over Croatia and book a spot in the Nations League quarter-finals. It was a little display of his work ethic, a simple kick of the ball honed to a fine point through thousands of repetitions on the training ground.
Kane dinked his penalty down the middle and a diving Dominik Livakovic almost blocked the ball with his trail leg. The goalkeeper beat the ground in frustration as if to say, I knew you’d do that. But perhaps this is the point: since that World Cup miss against France, Kane has trained every penalty into his armoury – the stutter or the run, the blast or the dink, left or right or the space a goalkeeper leaves behind – and Livakovic couldn’t cover them all.
It came after a rare miss for Bayern Munich last month. “The next one is always important to bounce back,” Kane said. “I did my usual routine yesterday in training and looked at the goalkeeper. I haven’t gone down the middle with a penalty for maybe three or four years. With penalties, you have to keep things fresh, keep things moving. I thought it was a good time to do it, looking at his clips. Thankfully, it paid off today.”
Kane's penalty evades the leg of Croatia goalkeeper Dominik Livakovic (PA)What did we learn from this slightly underwhelming performance? England are better than Croatia, but then we saw that at the World Cup when England beat them 4-2, and more emphatically in Rijeka last month when England won 7-0. This was naturally a more cautious Croatia, against an altogether sloppier England who made a series of uncharacteristic errors all over the field.
Trent Alexander-Arnold gave the ball away on the edge of his own box, Lewis Hall played a fancy flick straight off the pitch and Jarell Quansah assisted Croatia’s equaliser with a deft, daft header inside his own six-yard box. Jude Bellingham showed frustration towards some of his teammates’ errors, yet his best game largely deserted him too.
The England fans who shivered through these 90 minutes might instead remember the few moments beforehand. The commemorations began with a giant Tifo behind one goal displaying England’s captain roaring into the night sky with the words “England’s finest” and “Kane 126” emblazoned top and bottom. Kane emerged from the tunnel with his four children as mascots, and then spent a couple of minutes waving around the Ballon d’Or before being presented with three gifts, like a scene from the nativity. The three wise men were played by Peter Shilton (gift one: a golden crest), Croatia captain Luka Modric (gift two: an old football), and Prince William (gift three: a framed shirt).
"It's been a crazy few weeks,” Kane said. “It takes a lot out of you emotionally, physically and mentally ... it’s a hard balance because you want to take it in. Breaking the record is a massive thing in the history of our game, seeing the tifo there, having my kids with me, and being presented by all the people was beyond dreams, so of course you have got to take it in. Once the whistle goes and you’re on the pitch, you just start focusing on what your job is.”
Kane poses with Prince Phillip and Peter Shilton (Reuters)England started haphazardly but began to get a grip midway through the first half and it was Kane who unlocked Croatia’s defence with a raking pass to Bellingham arriving at the far post. Bellingham’s first-time cross found Morgan Rogers, who managed to impart just enough energy to the ball to bounce it home from three yards.
Kane had to wait. His first big chance came early in the second half when he received a cutback in the box from Declan Rice and a half-empty goal prepared to bulge, but Josip Stanisic wasn’t feeling sentimental and he lunged in front to block Kane’s goalbound shot.
Croatia drew level a few minutes later when Quansah took the extraordinary step of attempting a header back to Jordan Pickford inside a crowded penalty area. Pickford understandably wasn’t expecting the pass, and he was beaten to the ball by Petar Sucic who knocked it into the roof of England’s goal.
But Quansah went some way to making amends when his run drew some suspicious shirt pulling from Ivan Smolcic. Danish referee Morten Krogh missed it at first look but VAR intervened, and when Kane placed the ball down on the spot, the rest felt inevitable.
Kane celebrates after scoring from the spot (PA)England now travel to Madrid to face Spain on Sunday, where victory would clinch top spot in the group. It would also serve as a sign of England’s standing in the game right now if they were to beat the world champions on their own turf, after a narrow but encouraging 3-2 defeat by Spain at Wembley in September.
Kane will earn cap number 127 and he is intent on gathering many more. Since winning the Ballon d’Or he has made his remaining career targets abundantly clear: scoring 100 England goals, winning the Champions League with Bayern Munich and winning a major trophy for England.
Whether the Nations League counts as “major” is debatable – Cristiano Ronaldo might say yes but just about everyone else says no – yet it presents an opportunity to end England’s 60-year wait for a men’s trophy. It would be fitting if Kane, now England’s greatest player by any measure, was the man to lift it.