Your ‘ambivalence’ towards Harry Kane is decried as an abomination

‘Harry Kane should unite the country in adoration’, it says here. Who does? Some people are very much out of England touch.

On Harry Kane and perversion
The back pages of the nation’s newspapers are awash with Harry Kane in his golden boots and his new target of 100 England goals, with not one outlet offering a single note of caution or cynicism at this claim. ‘Definitely possible’ is the quote on the back page of The Guardian.

Even at his current rate of scoring goals – and he is undoubtedly slowing down in more ways than one – it will take him another four years to reach that total, at which stage he will be 35.

And that’s ignoring the fact that the last four years have featured three major tournaments, which has certainly boosted that run-rate.

And it’s also ignoring the fact that Kane was rotten at Euro 2024. And rotten again on Saturday against Ireland. Like really rotten.

‘Harry Kane has spent his entire career proving people wrong – and is not going to stop now,’ writes John Cross of the Daily Mirror, who actually rated Kane at a generous 6/10 at Euro 2024. We’re not sure he’s counting himself among the people Kane could prove wrong. He probably should.

But the English media absolutely loves Harry Kane, who never shies away from a press conference and will always pose with an England flag at four seconds’ notice.

He is particularly beloved of writers like Oliver Brown of the Daily Telegraph, fresh from ludicrous bile about Lee Carsley and the national anthem (‘Lee Carsley’s stance was a powder keg waiting to explode’), which at least gave him a break from protecting poor sportswomen against all those many, many men pretending to be women.

His latest headline is absolutely in character:

Harry Kane underappreciated as England captain because he is not sold like Beckham

Mediawatch already spots the problem; Brown is confusing ‘appreciation’ with ‘interest’. No vaguely intelligent football fan thinks that Kane is anywhere lower than third on an all-time list of England captains. And almost all would put him above Beckham.

And we also suspect we have been here before. Back in August when Brown wrote that ‘Harry Kane will become a global megastar – just like David Beckham did’.

That hasn’t quite happened yet – or ever will – so Brown is back, claiming that Kane is somehow ‘underappreciated’ in comparison to Beckham.

He writes that ‘self-idolatry is not Kane’s default setting’, even though he once wore boots emblazoned with ‘Lane, Lion, Leader’ during a Nations League match with Spain (they lost; Kane didn’t score) and was literally wearing golden boots on Tuesday and proclaiming that he could score 100 England goals.

A persuasive narrative around Kane is that he is under-appreciated. The logic is undeniable: where else but England would a player with 66 goals in national colours, 17 more than Sir Bobby Charlton and more than twice as many as Sir Tom Finney, be so routinely satirised?

Probably nowhere. Because satire is a particularly English thing. The English do satire, and there is something inherently funny in England’s most prolific goalscorer also being entirely potless. Only the po-faced would see that as Kane being underappreciated.

At times, he could be forgiven for thinking he is more popular in Germany than in his homeland. After his first match for Bayern, Max Eberl, sporting director of RB Leipzig, likened his projection in Bavaria to that of a “messiah walking on water”.

He also said “I think it’s almost too much that Harry Kane is being burdened with here” but Brown has somehow omitted that part of the quote. Also, that comment came after RB Leipzig beat Bayern 3-0, so he was clearly indulging in a little schadenfreude (is there a German word for that?).

Rarely is he afforded the same veneration in England. Even the Football Association, poised to honour him with a golden cap before he faces Finland, has not been averse to a little casual mockery. “What’s that in your pocket, Chris?” the governing body tweeted, when Tottenham lost an FA Cup semi-final to Manchester United in 2018, linking to an unrelated video of centre-back Chris Smalling saying: “Harry Kane.”

‘The governing body’ tweeted? Did they balls. It was the ‘Emirates FA Cup’ account, which was absolutely not managed by anybody employed directly by the FA, who apologised anyway.

While Kane has captained England on 72 occasions, he has arguably left less lasting an imprint on the popular imagination than Beckham, who did so 59 times.

The ‘popular imagination’, yes. But you are a Chief Sports Writer, targeting sports fans. And again, that ‘imprint’ is not about ‘underappreciation’ but about Beckham being a celebrity as well as a footballer. This is like saying Bob Dylan is underappreciated in comparison to Taylor Swift.

And Brown absolutely knows all this because he ends with logic.

He seems, sometimes, to be a player of limited hinterland, more preoccupied with attaining Ronaldo-esque records than pursuing celebrity for its own sake.

This is, by itself, a quality deserving of the highest admiration. And yet a sense persists that Kane struggles to elicit intense emotions one way or the other.

He does. He absolutely does. He’s essentially a dull man who is very good at scoring goals. That does not elicit love but it does not elicit underappreciation either. And comparing him with Beckham is not so much an apples/oranges situation as apples/guava.

The public mood around him is still characterised by restless frustration as to why he went missing for crucial periods this summer, and a debate as to whether he still deserves to be the first name on the England teamsheet. On his feats alone, Kane should unite the country in adoration. But without the trophy to define him, he will continue, however perversely, to attract ambivalence.

Which footballer does ‘unite the country in adoration’, Oliver? We’re not that kind of country anymore. David Beckham did not ‘unite the country in adoration’ and nor did Wayne Rooney. Or Steven Gerrard. Or even Bryan Robson.

It’s far less ‘perverse’ to be ambivalent about a dull man scoring goals than to be rabidly angry about a man not singing a song.

And actually, he hasn’t scored any goals that count.

No news = old news
Yes, it’s the international break. Yes, it’s difficult to generate traffic. But seriously, what the actual f*** is this, Mirror Sport?

‘I joined Man Utd from Arsenal – I asked to rip up my contract after one training session’

If the story sounds familiar, it’s because it really is: It’s four years old.

It’s absolutely shameless to a) publish this at all but particularly b) make it so prominent on your website.

You’re supposed to think it’s news because it is packaged as news.

Alexis Sanchez has revealed that he wanted to terminate his Manchester United contract just a day after he joined.

He ‘has revealed’ it alright. Four actual years ago.