Trevor Steven: Why Harry Kane bossing Bundesliga can help England win Euros
I will admit that I was surprised when Harry Kane chose to join Bayern Munich in the summer. He had the all-time Premier League scoring record in his sights and I wasn’t sure what he was hoping to achieve by going to the Bundesliga. I get the appeal of Bayern but there are clubs of that size he could probably have joined in England.
Eventually the penny dropped. I don’t think it’s the money or even the trophies but the personal challenge that tempted Kane. I think the underlying motivation is his role as England captain. He wants to develop himself and become an even better leader to give him the best chance of an international trophy with this talented crop of players.
Kane wants to add more strings to his bow and see how good he can be. The different environment at Bayern can make him more rounded, both culturally and as a footballer.
When I left Rangers to join Marseille in 1991 it was for the personal challenge. It wasn’t for England reasons as Graham Taylor wasn’t picking me. There was even more appeal to playing abroad in that time and Marseille were one of the top teams in Europe, having just reached the European Cup final. I wanted to see how I would cope.
I felt I grew as a person. You learn a new culture, perhaps also a language, and can get more breathing space. Players can be influenced by the people around them in England, so a change can be good. It proved the making of Jadon Sancho and Jude Bellingham but people do it for different reasons and I would certainly recommend it.
Football in Germany seems to suit Kane for a number of reasons. There isn’t the same fascination with playing out from the back, so Bundesliga defences aren’t as deep. The style is more open and the marking tends to be zonal, so there is more space for forwards. This has all played into Kane’s lap.
Then there is the reduced workload. The Bundesliga has four fewer games per season, as well as a winter break. This will all help Kane to arrive fresher at next summer’s European Championship, which just happens to be in Germany. You can be sure Bayern will have sold the move to Kane on how it will improve him.
After almost 20 years at Tottenham Hotspur, Kane is proving he is not a one-team wonder. We thought that he was a player who managers had to build a team around, but that has been shown to be a fallacy. Others at Spurs, meanwhile, have come out of their shells as the club emerges from the shadow of Kane.
The speed with which Kane has integrated at Bayern has surprised me, too. He could have had a slow start but with 15 goals in his first 10 Bundesliga games – including three hat-tricks – he has gone in there like a ball of fire. His finishing is as good as ever, his confidence must be sky-high and I can’t see him slowing down.
No one can score that many goals without being on a different level mentally and Kane is a very bright footballer. Because he has never had lightning pace, he has designed a way of playing that is most effective for him. He reads the game exceptionally well and consistently makes the right decisions.
I think we can all appreciate him a bit more now he’s in Germany, with club loyalties put aside. As with Bellingham at Real Madrid, we can take pride from seeing an Englishman ripping it up in another of Europe’s top leagues.
England should probably have won something by now with this group of players. Kane is sure to start every game next summer, so in joining Bayern he’s looking for that extra one or two per cent to add to his game, make him even more potent and help him lead the team to a first major trophy since 1966. Now I get it.
Trevor Steven is a former England footballer who played at two World Cups and two European Championships. @TrevorSteven63.