Yet there is something unflashy to him. Kane has been defined by goals but he has also exuded a reliability. “I want to score goals,” he said; a bland enough statement but a motto for his career. It was unsurprising, then, on his 100th cap and with England requiring a goal, that Kane obliged. He took Trent Alexander-Arnold’s pass, turned away from Robert Ivanov in deft fashion and then delivered the brutal finish, rising as it flew past Lukas Hradecky. It was typical of a man whose hunger is rarely sated by one that he swept in another, with expert precision, from Noni Madueke’s pass.
And this, in a nutshell, is what Kane has turned himself into: a remarkable finisher, but a reliable one. One hundred caps may not prove his most meaningful century: not when he has voiced an ambition to take his tally of international goals into three figures. “The top players in the world have scored more than I have, so there’s targets there to try and achieve,” he added. The down-to-earth delivery can conceal an ambition. The normality of Kane scoring can generate abnormal statistics.
Kane is much more than the numbers but they amount to a formidable body of work: more than 400 goals for clubs and country, 68 in England’s colours. The most recent came with two of his daughters as mascots, with a presentation of a golden cap by Frank Lampard, who is well suited to such ambassadorial duties.
This story is from the September 11, 2024 edition of The Independent.
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This story is from the September 11, 2024 edition of The Independent.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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