It has been tempting to wonder during Tottenham’s giddy start under Ange Postecoglou if Harry Kane has glanced wistfully in the direction of his former club.
When Kane takes to the field for Bayern Munich in tonight’s Champions League curtain-raiser against Manchester United, however, any notion that he may be regretting joining the Bundesliga champions will appear far-fetched.
Kane has long felt he belongs on this stage, and the chance to not just compete in the Champions League but win it was a leading factor in his decision to join Bayern.
During talks at the start of the summer with head coach Thomas Tuchel, who led Chelsea to European glory in 2021, Kane was convinced that Bayern would be second favourites only to holders Manchester City in this season’s competition, especially with him leading the line.
“There’s a reason Bayern Munich brought me to the club,” he said before United’s visit to the Allianz Arena. “They’re really eager to get back to winning the Champions League. They feel I can be a big help and I feel I can help the team as well.
“That’s why I’m here. That’s why I want to be playing in these competitions at the highest level, to try to help my team win these trophies.”
Kane knows that winning the Champions League would cement his legacy as a great of the game and put a definitive end to questions over his lack of silverware, moving the dial in a way that helping Bayern to a 12th consecutive Bundesliga title never could.
He added: “The Champions League is a big goal, of course, but I’m not solely focused on that. I want to win all three competitions that we’re in.
“Of course, it’s the biggest competition in Europe, so to win the Champions League would be a dream come true.”
For the 30-year-old, this season’s group stage — the last of the current format before the introduction of ‘the Swiss model’ — comes with the added attraction of being the first since 2002-03 without either Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, the two top scorers in Champions League history.
Karim Benzema, fourth on the list, also left Europe over the summer, and Kane will believe that he can genuinely be the dominant force in this season’s competition, ahead of Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland.
If Kane stars and Bayern go all the way, he would undoubtedly be in the frame for the Ballon d’Or.
He will certainly be aiming to finish as the Champions League’s leading scorer this season, and his record to date is hugely impressive, despite only playing in the competition in five of his nine seasons in Spurs’s first team.
Against Juventus in February 2018, Kane became the first player in Champions League history to score nine goals in his first nine appearances, but Spurs crashed out in the last-16 against the wily Italians, despite shading both legs.
Kane then became the fastest player to reach 20 Champions League goals when he scored in a 4-2 win over Olympiacos on his 24th appearance in November 2019, surpassing Alessandro Del Piero’s previous best of 26 games (Haaland, though, has since eclipsed him).
In the previous season, Spurs competed in the 2019 final but Kane never got going in a 2-0 defeat by Liverpool, amid suggestions he was not fully up to speed after returning from an injury lay-off for the showpiece in Madrid.
He had missed the memorable win over Manchester City in the quarter-final decider, as well as both legs of Spurs’s iconic semi-final triumph over Ajax.
If Kane needed any further reasons to be motivated by a return to the competition, the final will be held at Wembley, fuelling a sense of destiny for the England captain. “If there’s someone out there writing a movie, I will do my best to make it happen!” he has said.
Tonight’s showdown against Kane’s former suitors United offers him the perfect chance for an explosive opening scene.
