Sign up to Miguel Delaney’s Reading the Game newsletter sent straight to your inbox for free
Sign up to Miguel’s Delaney’s free weekly newsletter
As Harry Kane was talking about the pressures involved in wearing one shirt, he was offered another. Playing for England brings pressure, responsibility and criticism. The escape route was offered by an enterprising reporter from local German television, inviting Kane to play for seventh-tier SG Lauscha/Neuhaus. The offer included free bratwurst, he said, sufficiently confident to bring a shirt with the striker’s name on it while brandishing a contract. “I’ll have to talk to my agent and see what we can do,” smiled Kane.
The harsher words were reserved for the only other Englishman to win the Golden Boot in the World Cup. Gary Lineker had branded England’s performance against Denmark “s**t” on a podcast. “The bottom line is we haven’t won anything as a nation for a long, long time and a lot of these players were part of that and they know how tough it is,” countered Kane. “All I would say is remember what it is like to wear the shirt and that their words are listened to. I am sure they want us to win a major tournament and being as helpful as they can and building the lads up with confidence would be a much better way of going about it. I’m not telling people not to do their job, it’s their job to analyse games and players. There will be games where I get stick or other players will get stick. Maybe when I’m 40 or 50, I’ll be on one of those shows trying to dig players out – I hope I’m not.”
He did suspect an ulterior motive, given Lineker’s most abrasive comments came on a podcast he hosts, run by his production company. “People will do things for their own gain, that’s just life,” he said. “With podcasts and things like that, people are trying to promote their own channels.”
The delivery was mild-mannered and measured; it felt a proportionate response when some of the reaction to England’s undeniably poor display against the Danes was disproportionate. “I don’t think we played well in the Denmark game,” said Kane. “We dropped below what we know we can. We’ve been a bit loose with the ball in comparison to how we’ve been in recent years and then that’s caused more time than we’re used to without the ball. I don’t think we’ve quite got the pressure right or the intensity right. We haven’t pressed with enough energy and enthusiasm, which will need to change going forward.”
If there is a search for solutions, Kane thinks the inquest should be postponed. “After the tournament, you can judge us,” he said. And the probability is that England’s tournament has longer to run. Every previous side in a 24-team European Championship to take four points in a group has progressed. Kane described England as “nearly qualified”. His personal strategy is to try and peak in the knockout stages. He is playing a long game, looking for lessons from his other reference points.
“I love my other sports and always in these tournaments at this early stage it is almost like a boxer in the first couple of rounds seeing where everyone is at and how they feel,” he said. “Or a golfer in a major tournament in the first round; don’t play yourself out of the tournament. Be calm.”
He was similarly unworried about his physical condition. “I am fit,” he said. Other conclusions were drawn after Kane was taken off with 20 minutes remaining in the Denmark game. If there was something of a shock to see him depart when England needed a goal, Kane argued it was not unique. “It’s not the first time it’s happened,” he said. “It happened in the Scotland game in the last Euros when it was 0-0.” Certainly, listening to him, it scarcely felt like the breakdown of his relationship with Southgate. “A lot of my career I’ve played the full 90 minutes,” he said. “But the manager will make the best decisions for what he feels in that moment for the team. As a player, as the captain, you have to accept that whether you agree with that or not.”
If Kane’s presence on the bench was contentious, his positioning on the pitch can too be controversial. For some, he was too high against Serbia, for others too deep against Denmark. He is damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t. “As always, with me personally, I’ve had it over the last four or five years, if I stay too high and I don’t touch the ball, I should drop deep and be involved,” he said. “And if I dropped deep, and get involved, I should be in the box to score.”
He explained his high position against Serbia as a measure he adopted on his own initiative, realising it created more room for Jude Bellingham and Phil Foden between the lines.
He was in the box to score England’s goal against Denmark. In one respect, he is ahead of schedule now. “Have I played the best that I know I can? No,” he admitted. “But I didn’t score in the group stage at the [2022] World Cup, I didn’t score in the group stage at the Euros [in 2021]. So from my point of view, it’s a bonus to be one goal ahead.”
It may not have been enough to impress former England centre-forwards such as Lineker and Alan Shearer but, after signing the shirt he was offered, if nothing else it should guarantee him a game in the German seventh tier.