In July, Tottenham Hotspur striker Harry Kane turns 30.
For past generations of professional football players, such a step would be viewed with dread. If they were lucky, the players could have five more seasons, but the role they perhaps expected to have would be reduced and they may have to leave it. a point or two for normal playing time.
Today, the outlook is less bleak, innovations in sports science and abundant sums invested to keep players on point mean that more and more football stars play at the point until the late thirties.
People like Sadio Mane and Robert Lewandowski have even made a lot of money and contracts that increase beyond 35, the age that England’s Professional Football Association considers adequate to start handing out pensions.
However, Kane should know that his time as one of the biggest names in world football is limited.
This summer, the Tottenham Hotspur striker will serve one more season on the six-year contract he signed with in 2018.
At the time he signed the contract, there were few more important players in English football, the season prior to signing the contract he scored 41 goals in 48 appearances.
He also began racking up private accolades, that summer adding a World Cup Golden Boot to the pair of Premier League goalscorer awards he already possessed.
But all the Spurs star was looking for was to hold a piece of silver in the air and pocket a medal.
“The most important thing is a trophy,” he said at the time. “I’ve been betting on this point for about 4 years and we haven’t won a trophy yet.
“I wake up every morning and that’s what I need to achieve. Personally, though, I just need to improve. Every year I need to improve, score more goals and get more assists. “
However, in the years since the glory to which the Tottenham Hotspur star aspired, it has remained elusive.
Near misses, such as Spurs’ 2019 Champions League final loss to Liverpool or England’s Euro 2020 final loss to Italy on penalties, only compounded the feeling that Kane was cursed for never winning the titles his excellence deserves.
The failure to win the silver medal came as he added other private achievements, such as fitting in for Tottenham Hotspur and England’s smartest goalscorer of all time, to his name.
Recently, a hypothetical question has circulated on social media: would you prefer the career of Harry Kane, where individual honours were achieved without collective good fortune, or that of Leicester City star Jamie Vardy, who won the Premier League and FA Cup?
Opinion was divided, but it revealed the shortcomings of Kane’s legacy and one must wonder what he would say himself: he believes he still believes he has a chance to fit into the achievements of 36-year-old Vardy.
In fact, it must have been in his brain when, in the summer of 2021, he tried to set up a transfer to Manchester City.
But, locked into his successful six-year contract, any move was not a starter. Tottenham Hotspur didn’t have the goal of letting their star pass and didn’t want to do it.
“[Manchester City] surely did everything,” manager Pep Guardiola said of Kane’s signing attempts, “we didn’t communicate about Tottenham, not even an offer, because they didn’t need to negotiate and when [a] team needs to negotiate, not say anything.
“Maybe I would do the same if I had Harry Kane in my team, but he is a Tottenham Hotspur player. I wish him the most productive for the rest of his career and that he does well in London. “
After the saga of moves, Manchester City won the Premier League, Kane added a year to his trophy-free streak.
As soon as he avoided, he tied himself up and continued to hit the goal, but the feeling that he would not be stuck in the same stalemate again.
While Tottenham Hotspur talisman Heung Min Son has been connected with a contract extension, there has been little prospect of a deal with the England striker.
Spurs appear to be in worse shape for Kane’s purpose of winning a trophy five years ago and, as the summer move window approaches, the club is preparing to welcome a player on just 12 months on his contract.
The interest in bringing Kane to Manchester is strong again, but this time it is not City but Manchester United who are in the most sensible goalscorer in England.
This week [24 April 2023] he reported that the club was already investigating the player with a view to signing him for the Old Trafford marquee in 2023.
United might not be offering the medal guarantee that a contract with the team on the other side of town has provided in recent years, but even in United’s worst periods of the past decade, it has earned more than the striker.
For Kane’s sake, we must hope that the choice of the striker will be rewarded with some point of success.
The Tottenham Hotspur striker is, compared to Premier League top scorer Alan Shearer, a guy whose 260 goals will likely be surpassed by Kane if he remains in the division.
Shearer won a major honour in his career, the 1994–95 Premier League name with Blackburn Rovers. It’s a feat that has secured his legacy, which, like Kane, is governed by non-public distinctions.
If he hadn’t won this crown, he might not be the same way.
An unwavering servant of his boyhood club, Newcastle United, chances are that if he had ended his career without a trophy, his resolve to reject the serial winners of his era, Manchester United, in 1996, would be more appreciated.
Kane deserves to stand out through Shearer as one of the biggest snipers in the league, winning trophies would compare him to players like Vardy, who have not reached the same criteria as him for so long.