These are the crossroads Harry Kane was destined to arrive at. A lasting club legacy and Premier League record-breaking status in one direction. Success in the other.
Having just turned 30, he knows another contract at Tottenham Hotspur would secure the first but dramatically limit the possibility of the second. But now that Spurs have reportedly accepted a £92 million offer from Bayern Munich for the England captain’s services, those trophies he has been pining for are suddenly a very real prospect.
It feels like this moment has been coming for two years, ever since he stood on a golf course with his former national team assistant coach Gary Neville for a taping of The Overlap and professed to wanting something bigger than had been on offer at White Hart Lane.
His words were carefully manicured. “There’s been some amazing moments, some amazing years for the club, so there are some positives there, but of course my profession is about winning and I want to win.
“I don’t want to come to the end of my career and have any regrets, so I want to be the best I can be. I’m not afraid to say I want to try to get on the level that Ronaldo and Messi got to, that’s my ultimate goal, to be winning trophies season in, season out. To be scoring 50, 60, 70 goals season in, season out.
“I feel like I’ve almost got another career to go and achieve what I want to achieve.”
It feels like now or never, and with Spurs’ decision to cash in on their greatest asset less than 12 months before the end of his existing contract, he has the option to go and be a winner
Bayern won an 11th straight Bundesliga title last season. The fact that they did so by the skin of their teeth thanks to a Borussia Dortmund implosion on the final day has not been overlooked by those in positions of power at Sabener Strasse. They don’t want their dominance of Germany to be in any such question in 2023-24, and what’s more, they need to get back in the major conversation in the Champions League too.
The 2020 European champions have not been beyond the quarter-finals in Europe since their behind-closed-doors victory over Paris Saint-Germain in the Lisbon final played amidst worldwide lockdowns. Their fans last got to see them on the biggest of stages back at Wembley in 2013.
In Kane they have sought out a striker who can turn territorial control into scoreboard pressure. When Robert Lewandowski left for Barcelona last summer, FCB lost a man who had hit a minimum of 40 goals per season for them over the previous seven years, including 50-plus twice.
If the England skipper wants to emulate the numbers of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, to win the honours that have thus far eluded him, to go on and have a career beyond the career he has had so far, this is his chance. Bayern is made for a goal-getter of his ilk, and he is made to score goals in the sorts of volumes that the German champions have cherished before.
Sure, Spurs could have a brighter future ahead. In Ange Postecoglou they have a new manager who looks like he could be building an exciting new project. But in reality, Kane has bet on Tottenham one too many times before.
Tim Sherwood brought him through, Mauricio Pochettino showed him what he really could be, taking Tottenham to within 90 minutes of a European crown. Jose Mourinho was the proven winner supposed to sate the thirst for trophies that rankled with both Kane and Spurs, then Nuno Espirito Santo and Antonio Conte came and went without troubling trophy engravers.
Now is the time for Kane to stop betting on heads when it keeps coming up tails. Released from the goldfish bowl of attention as Tottenham’s greatest ever scorer and biggest hope of success, a move to Bayern could be the making of him as the one thing he has so far not become. And that’s a winner.
