Harry Kane admits his continued lack of trophy success has left him more “determined and hungry” to lead England to Euro 2024 glory.
The 30-year-old joined Bayern Munich from Tottenham last summer but ended a goal-laden first campaign in Bavaria empty-handed as an 11-year run of Bundesliga titles was halted by unbeaten Bayer Leverkusen.
Having already crashed out of the DFB Pokal to lower-league opponents, Bayern then lost their Champions League semi-final to eventual winners Real Madrid.
Despite being Spurs’ all-time leading goalscorer, Kane also failed to win any major honours during his stint in north London and now he wants to end his trophy duck in style.
Speaking ahead of England’s Euro 2024 opener against Serbia in Gelsenkirchen, the captain said: “It would mean a lot, I love playing for my country, I love playing for England.
“It means the world to me every time I step out on the pitch wearing a shirt.
“I think winning a major tournament with England would be one of the pinnacles of anyone’s career so that is the aim.
“For me personally, the trophies haven’t quite happened yet but it just makes me more determined and hungry to go out there and do that.
“That starts this summer, we have a good opportunity, a lot of hard work in front of us, but that opportunity is there and I’m looking forward to trying to make it happen.”
I love playing for my country, I love playing for England. It means the world to me every time I step out on the pitch wearing a shirt— Harry Kane
Kane is also England’s record marksman and claimed the Golden Boot at the 2018 World Cup in Russia as Gareth Southgate’s side reached the semi-finals.
And the striker believes another similarly impressive tournament in front of goal can only help end his wait for honours.
“I’m really looking forward to this tournament,” he added.
“I think back to 2018 and the Golden Boot was an amazing achievement but as always, it was a consequence of winning games and trying to win the European Championship is what we’re trying to do.
“If I win the Golden Boot along the way then fantastic and it means I’m obviously helping my team but we have some great goalscorers in the team, players who are definitely on form and had fantastic seasons and now it’s about taking that into this major tournament and we’re just excited to get going.”
England face a tough opening fixture against Group C rivals Serbia, with Kane expecting a challenge from Dragan Stojkovic’s side.
He said: “I think they have a lot of good qualities, some great attacking players who are known to be goalscorers. So they pose a lot of threats and I think without the ball, we expect an aggressive team, a team who defend really well.
“We are expecting a really tough game tomorrow night and like Gareth said if we don’t quite get it right we could be in for a really tough game.
“So we will focus on ourselves as we always do but of course we know that Serbia poses a lot of good threats as well.”
