Kane not taking the easy option with Bayern move amid Lewandowski challenge

11 August 2023 , 10:57

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As the captain of England and as a living Spurs legend, Harry Kane has always watched his words.

Kane has never been particularly outspoken, he has always been careful, conservative even. But going to Bayern Munich is as bold a statement as he has made. It says he accepts there will be an asterisk next to his stellar goalscoring career if it ends without a team winners’ medal to his name.

It says he is still not afraid of a challenge. Because it IS a big challenge he is taking on at Bayern. Adapting to new team-mates, to a new language and to a slightly different culture will take some doing, no matter how dominant his new club is.

And there will be huge pressure on a striker who will be getting paid record amounts and who will be arriving for a record fee. Make no mistake, Bayern fans can be magnificently supportive but they can also be extremely demanding.

For all the talk of Bayern dominating German football, there is still a pressure-cooker atmosphere inside the Allianz Arena and Kane will have a lot to live up to. Even though the Polish striker left in the summer of 2022, Kane will be seen as the successor to Robert Lewandowski, who scored 344 times in 375 appearances for the six-times European champions.

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During that time, Lewandowski helped Bayern win their most recent Champions League.

Following that victory over Paris St Germain in Lisbon in 2020, there have been three quarter-final exits but even though the last of those - a 4-1 aggregate loss to eventual champions Manchester City - looked emphatic, Bayern missed a host of chances to make the tie an awful lot tighter.

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Harry Kane is closing in on a move to Bayern Munich (Visionhaus/Getty Images)

That was probably when Thomas Tuchel decided the pursuit of Kane, 30, would be a priority. In last season’s Bundesliga campaign, Serge Gnabry was Bayern’s top-scorer, but his 14 goals paled in comparison to Lewandowski’s 35 in the previous campaign.

And while Kane’s move is clearly testament to his desire to win trophies and medals, the England skipper will also know that team success and individual accolades often go hand-in-hand.

Knowing the extent of his hunger to reach personal milestones, this switch to one of European football’s giant, storied clubs, is not just about Kane wanting league titles and Champions League glory.

This is about Kane wanting even more individual honours. This is about Kane wanting to win a Ballon D’Or, something he has spoken about on several occasions during his journey to become England’s all-time top scorer.

Lewandowski would surely have won it in 2020 had it not been cancelled by the Covid pandemic (although he was named FIFA’s World Best that year) and he came second in 2021.

Make no mistake, that type of honour will be on Kane’s radar when he begins work in Bavaria. And also, there is that intangible honour of going down in history as a truly great player in more than one country, something only the very best achieve.

Forget all the talk of Bayern’s dominance (they only won the title in the very final throes of last season), it will not be easy for Kane in Munich. And that is why his bold move deserves to work out.