He “only” shines on the pitch
Kane gives a very boring interview – and that’s a good thing
January 15, 2024, 11:16 a.m
With Harry Kane, FC Bayern Munich signed a striker with a built-in goal guarantee last summer. The captain of the English national team shines on the pitch and otherwise holds back. It’s easy to forgive him for his boring interviews. He’s just human.
In the midst of the first pandemic season of 2020/2021, a short video clip on YouTube caused a lot of excitement. The journalist Mark Ogden was sitting in his study in November 2020. The ESPN journalist was an expert on ESPNFC, the American broadcaster’s TV and web format. What happened next was recorded and caused quite a stir in England. Ogden should talk about Harry Kane. He had previously scored a penalty in Spurs’ 2-1 win over Brighton and thus shot himself into the top 10 goalscorers in the English Premier League.
In the conversation with moderator Alexis Nunes, Ogden first praised Kane and then lost the thread. The interview broke off and the scandal began. Nunes and Ogden joked about Tottenham Hotspur’s boring goalscorer. “Should I do it Harry Kane-style?” he asked, and an off-camera voice said, “Yes. Go through with it. That’s what defines him.” Nunes was happy: “Yes, his voice, really. Anyone who speaks like that is fortunately a footballer.” Afterwards the conversation continued as if nothing had happened.
Unfortunately, not only the show, but also the non-public part later appeared on YouTube. The scandal was perfect. The Internet raged, Ogden and Nunes rowed back and apologized for the leak on behalf of the US broadcaster. Harry Kane kept scoring and scoring and scoring. At the end of the 2022/2023 season, he had scored a total of 213 goals in the Premier League and moved up to second place on the all-time top scorer list. Then he left England and went to Munich.
There, too, the captain of the English national team cultivated his reputation as a goalscorer and as someone who shines on the pitch and, off it, leads the unspectacular and probably somewhat boring life of an early thirties man with a lot of money. He loves his vacation in the Caribbean, he likes the golf course around the corner and, above all, he loves his wife Katie and their four children, who have now moved to the Bavarian capital after months of separation. They live in the house of former Bayern defender Lucas Hernández.
Does the record matter now?
On Friday they saw Harry Kane taking all the time in the world. The superstar waited until the last seconds of regular time. Then he completed an assist from Leon Goretzka and scored another goal. It was 3-0 for the record champions at the restart against TSG Hoffenheim and it was his 22nd goal of the Bundesliga season. Afterwards, he ran through the mixed zone to see his family. He didn’t have time for interviews.
With his goal tally he is already following in the footsteps of Robert Lewandowski, who also scored 22 goals in the first half of the 2020/2021 series under the clinically pure conditions of the Corona season. In the catch-up game against Union Berlin on January 24th, the captain of the English national team can set a new league record and then hunt for the Pole’s 41 goals from that same season.
“Whoever has set records in the club before you – of course you try to get the best out of yourself, set your own records and break these records,” Kane left no doubt in an interview published in “Kicker” on Monday. that he is now targeting this brand too. Although he then immediately qualified: “However, I don’t think about these topics. I just want to play, the media and the fans are allowed to talk about everything else. Robert rightly has an extremely high status here, he has set the bar high. ” So the record is “nice to have”, but then again not. Because goals are scored when Kane is on the pitch and because the others should talk.
Kane is no Lewandowski
Kane moved from England to Bayern Munich in the summer of 2023 for over 100 million euros. The record champions almost missed out on the championship title in the first year after Lewandowski in the 2022/2023 season. Also because a real goalscorer was missing up front in the tight games. Sadio Mané, who moved to FC Bayern as a replacement for the Pole, initially celebrated with the fans on the fence, but it soon turned out to be a veritable flop. After just one year, the former Liverpool FC star moved on. He now plays in the fantasy league in Saudi Arabia.
With Harry Kane, FC Bayern Munich now has a real goalscorer again and one who puts Robert Lewandowski in the shade off the pitch. While the Pole has always strived for recognition over the years, longed for the love of the fans and even more for the big individual titles and yet seemed awkward at the same time, it is enough for the Englishman to be Harry Kane. How pleasant, how refreshing boredom can be.
“That’s life”
The interview now published in “Kicker” also contributes to this. It is unspectacular and the press department has cleared it of any rough spots, reinforcing the image of the polite Mr. Kane who would do anything for the team, who makes no claims to power and who cannot be distracted.
“When there are big transfers, sometimes players come who really want to impress and maybe get injured in the process,” says Kane: “For me it was just about training well and recovering. Regeneration is extremely important for me, I try to to relax and stay calm – and not to do too much outside of training.” And takes it elsewhere. He says: “That’s life: you have a job, a family to look after, and it goes on like that. As soon as the weather improves, I’ll find a few golf courses and play a few holes while they Children go to school.”
This doesn’t actually sound particularly spectacular. Harry Kane is someone who just wants to impress when he’s on the pitch. Even if Harry Kane gives very boring interviews, like the one just published in “Kicker” and filed under “incredibly boring”, Bayern can count themselves lucky. There is no one else like the captain of the English national team in world football. What counts is on the pitch. Mark Ogden will know this too by now.