It is a very Harry Kane kind of thing to equal a record. Respectful, no ego, all about the collective. On a room temperature night at Wembley Stadium Kane duly did this, drawing level with Peter Shilton’s record for England caps, and doing so while delivering a performance of Total Midweek Kane.
There were two neat, slick goals, one in each half, the high points of a 3-0 win against Czechia that all but guarantees a place in the Nations League knockouts. England need one more point in November to be certain. At which point Kane will have the chance to carry on equalling his own new caps record, humbly paying tribute to himself each time, saying, yeah, it’s an honour to share that number with a man like (myself).
Otherwise this was a game that felt like it was dying right from the first whistle. With half-time looming and England 1-0 up through Vladimir Coufal’s spectacular close-range own goal, a really savage finish, it was tempting to take a poll of everyone in the ground on whether we should just wrap it up here and all go home.
But there was still one thing left to happen, the dishing up of a moment of iconic Tuesday Wembley Kane. And of course we got one. It is tempting to call Kane The Postman on these occasions, but the difference is he actually delivers. He does also wear shorts a lot too, so there’s that.
The moment arrived on 40 minutes, and it was classical in its execution, a nod to the back catalogue, like Rolling Stones doing Satisfaction, Del Boy falling through the bar. It was also a fittingly perfect English football move, like something out of the Charles Hughes FA handbook: three long-distance touches, 100 yards covered, Elliot Anderson’s excellent swivelling pass, Morgan Rogers with a volleyed cross and Kane with the finish on his right foot, a first-time ping across the goalkeeper, a move straight out of Lilleshall 1979, cones and bibs, Don Howe nodding along.
There was a bashful semi-guard of honour as England’s players lined up to shake hands. On the touchline Thomas Tuchel applauded solemnly rather than punching the air, up there in formal black trousers, black jumper, black leather lace-ups, hair shorn at the ears, like Prince William managing a charity game.
At that moment Kane’s England goals-to-games ratio read 90 in 125, great symmetrical numbers, and the temptation to void the second half might have been overwhelming. But there was still one more thing that needed to happen, and Kane duly achieved it on 57 minutes.
His second goal was a lovely downward header from a corner, a moment that combined two classic tropes, the hanging in the air, the creating of the pace on the ball. That was pretty much that. Kane would come off to a family-favourite ovation as the game really did wind out for good. But as things stand he has a low-key case, if we’re going full numberwang, for a kind of footballing ultimacy.
Here is the key stat. Right now no man has ever scored more goals for their country at a better ratio than Kane. Before tonight Ali Daei, one of the great pub quiz questions of the early 2000s, was one decimal point ahead. And from here Kane will surely reel in the Iranian goal machine, then finish up behind only Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, leaving him with a claim under this metric to be the best goalscorer ever in international football.
He’s not that. He’s never claimed to be. Also, Erling Haaland is coming up like a train in the rearview mirror. But the real point is that it has always been necessary, for some reason, to defend his capacities and his contributions. Kane was Millwall Young Player of the Year 14 years ago and just hoping to make it in the top tier. His entire career is a culmination of graft, brains and hard work, as opposed to the kind of talent that simply needs to be flame-throwered in the right factories. He still jogs about looking like a dutiful first world war trench sergeant who keeps a baby bird in his waistcoat pocket.
And Kane really is drowning in honey right now, one of those moments to simply float along, to suck every last drop of sweetness out of the air. He has respect, status, a Ballon d’Or shot. His right foot is one of the great weapons in world football.
In Germany he has reached another level, more honed and tanned, leaner, all shoulders, jaw, iconic hairline, scorer of 85 goals in 75 games for club and country since the start of last season. He is also loved, maybe more so than in his own country, the global hipster choice as best centre-forward in the world. Luis Díaz recently called him the complete footballer, “a machine and also a gentleman”, like a kind of robot butler.
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And here? Well. Welcome to England. The punishment for playing lots of games and scoring lots of goals is that we must ask, yes, but is he good enough? Can he be the best, can he remove the sword from the stone, re-establish Camelot, make me cry hot, happy cheddar cheese tears of English joy?
Kane is not the greatest ever England player. That will be Bobby Charlton until someone matches his feat of winning the World Cup, European Cup and a Ballon d’Or and scoring 50-odd goals from midfield. But in the modern era it’s Kane, fresh air, then everyone else.
Yes, some will say he doesn’t do it all the time against the very best. But they will be wrong. You always score more against weaker teams. That’s why they’re weaker teams. Kane has often died on his feet in mid-summer. But he still has 21 tournament goals, 10 in knockout games, two in semi-finals. Maybe England just don’t tend to win these games because they’re just not good enough. It seems fair to say had he played for France, Argentina or Spain, Kane would have won a World Cup by now.
He is also, and this is a small thing, a really nice bloke. This isn’t easy. There are so many ways not to be now, so many opportunities to fail or fall short in public. But Kane just loves what he’s doing, always carries with him that sense of duty, has an endearing habit of talking about real-life events like they’re high-stakes football games. Last year he did a TV interview where he made having a family Christmas sound like preparing for a major European title decider (“ultimately I’m there to put smiles on faces”).
Here it was enough just to elevate the occasion. From the start Wembley had that empty, glazed midweek feel, a little Englanded out at the end of a quadruple-header. For a while there was a sense of Kane shying away from his own flag day, hiding deep in England’s midfield, like a dad bashfully half-acknowledging the happy birthday from the waiters in an Italian restaurant. Some things were obvious here. Czechia really did lose to the Faroe Islands last year. Yep, can see that. England need to stop playing the ball out compulsively from the back. They’re not very good at it. On the plus side, England didn’t fall into horseshoe of death football, finding a way to step up the pace rather than amble from side to side.
And so we roll on. Everyone gets to feel an empowering sense of rage in the league again. And this England team is clearly on a journey, which is all we can ask. Wherever it ends up, its best chance of success will involve Kane simply being himself: more Kane, more goals, more of that unwavering low-key excellence you only really feel when it’s gone.
