With just two goals remaining, England captain Harry Kane has a chance to make history in Qatar by tying Wayne Rooney’s record of 53 goals for the Three Lions.
But if Kane doesn’t hoist the World Cup at the Lusail Stadium on December 18, he won’t have a significant trophy to his name by the time he turns 30.
Kane already enjoys legendary status at Tottenham Hotspur, where he is only seven goals away from Jimmy Greaves’ club record of 266, and he will have a second chance at immortality if he leads Gareth Southgate’s team to their first major tournament victory in 56 years.
Agonizingly near to winning the biggest trophies in the sport for both club and nation, he has come.
In the Euro 2020 final against Italy 16 months ago, England lost on penalties in front of a home crowd, and Kane scored in the shootout.
In 2019, when Tottenham advanced to the Champions League final for the first time in club history, he was again on the losing side, falling 2-0 to Liverpool in Madrid.
Instead, despite early in his career having unimpressive loan spells at Leyton Orient, Millwall, Norwich City, and Leicester City, his career has been littered with personal honors and goalscoring records.
Kane, who already shares the record for most goals scored by an English player in a major tournament with Gary Lineker (10), has won three Premier League Golden Boots in addition to a World Cup Golden Boot.
Kane commented on the possibility of breaking the record for most goals scored by an Englishman in Qatar: “I’m close, I try not to think about it too much, but with the World Cup coming up it would be a great location to go and do it.”
“I’m convinced that when the time comes, I’ll be prepared, and if I do it this winter, it will be very satisfying,”
Southgate has made it clear that he wants the world record goal to be scored in the championship game career junctures.
But if England loses, it will make what happens to their top player in the future more more important.
Kane’s career is at a crossroads because he still has 18 months left on his Tottenham deal.
In the weeks after England’s failure in the 2016 Euro final, he attempted but failed to pressure Spurs into negotiations with Manchester City about a trade.
Erling Haaland’s presence in Manchester appears to have put a stop to that, with Bayern Munich now the front-runner should Kane finally decide to leave north London.
According to Jurgen Klinsmann, who made the same switch from Spurs to Bayern in 1995, “I think people would forgive him if he said at a certain point, if it’s next summer or the summer after when his contract is definitely over, that he will move on to a club that might give him a higher probability to win trophies.”
Kane switching to a team that is less dependent on him than Tottenham would be advantageous for England as well.
In a notoriously brutal schedule designed to fit in games before the World Cup, he has so far this season played all but 12 minutes of every Premier League and Champions League game for Antonio Conte’s team.
Only Haaland has scored more Premier League goals than he has up to this point, yet his physique and form have held up.
The worry for England is that its best player might be exhausted even before the Middle Eastern conflict picks up steam.
