When Harry Kane walks out at the Al Bayt Stadium on Sunday evening it will be another step on the journey of a man who is used to hearing criticism and striding through it.
football.london visited the 'Harry Kane: I want to play football' exhibition at the Museum of London this week before the building closes its doors for the final time today (Sunday) ahead of the museum's relocation to reopen in 2026. The exhibition on Kane, which has been open for more than six months, featured personal items, family photos and iconic objects collected by the striker and his family to document a career that has been spent proving people wrong.
From his release from Arsenal's academy at just eight-years-old to his years out on loan at clubs across the Football League as he attempted to show the first team coaches that he deserved a chance at Tottenham to becoming one of the world's best strikers, Kane's career has been one spent making critical predictions about him look ridiculous.
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As England approach their round of 16 World Cup clash against Senegal, all eyes are on Kane as he leads his country once more on the global stage, with murmurs of discontent that for the top scoring team in the competition, the captain is yet to grab any of those goals, as he lies just two off Wayne Rooney's record of 53 strikes for England.
Those grumbles are pushing to one side somewhat the fact that in his two World Cups, Kane has nine goal involvements in nine matches, the six goals that brought the 2018 Golden Boot and the three assists that are more than anyone else in this year's tournament. It's also forgetting his 10 goals and one assist in six qualifying matches that fired England to Qatar in the first place.
Kane is one of those players who, perhaps due to the tribal nature of football fandom, may never truly be appreciated for his contribution to one of England's best periods of international tournament football in their history and also his impact on the Premier League as he enters the tournament with 12 goals in 15 matches to his name in that competition this season.
Within the game, he's held up as one of the best. Brazil star Neymar called him "incredible" ahead of the World Cup and that he has a "special love" for him and his abilities, while his legendary compatriot Roberto Carlos simply said: "Harry Kane. For me, he is top."
Then there is that foot injury suffered in the first match against Iran after a loose tackle on him, but the 29-year-old declared ahead of Sunday's game that he's fully fit.
"First and foremost my foot feels fine, no problem at all. It has been getting getter and better day by day," he confirmed on Saturday. "Form-wise I feel like I have been playing well. Goals are what I'm going to be judged on most, but I'm a calm individual and I always try to focus on doing my best for the team.
"I will continue to do that. If the goals come, great, it will give us a better chance of winning. It will be a tough game, but tomorrow hopefully I can get off the mark. I feel really good, I feel fit and sharp. I feel as match fit as I'm ever going to feel. Only time will tell. I can try and come into the best form with these knockout games."
It's worth noting the pattern of Kane's goal clusters in his other most recent tournaments and the lessons he learned along the way. On his way to the World Cup Golden Boot in 2018, he scored five in the group stage and his sixth in the round of 16 against Colombia. Yet he did not score in the quarter-finals, semi-finals or third place play-off match.
Then at the Euros last year, his goals arrived the other way around. None came in the group stages and again the criticism emerged before he burst to life with four goals across the games against Germany, Ukraine and Denmark in the last 16, quarter-final and semi-final. He also netted in the penalty shoot-out in the final against Italy at Wembley.
Kane has always studied how to improve his game, whether it be the way he looks after himself off the pitch and how he trains, eats and lives his life, or whether it's on the pitch and the aspects he can tweak and change to produce more. The striker has been learning all about tournament life and working out how to hit his stride at the right time and that could come into play again.
"It probably goes back to 2018. In the World Cup, I felt like, just from a physical and maybe mental side of things, we started the tournament great, I started the tournament with loads of goals, used a lot of energy and as the tournament went on, I felt like my performances dipped in the latter stages," he explained this weekend.
"I was conscious before the Euros of trying to make it the other way. Of course I still wanted to start well but I was trying to make sure that physically and mentally I was in the best place for the knockout stages. I carried it into this tournament. I would love to be sitting here with two or three goals now for sure but I think the group stage has gone well. Minutes-wise, it has not been too tough."
Kane is a player who has delivered throughout his career when people doubted him and with the way he studies his own game in order to improve, don't bet against him bursting to life in front of goal on Sunday evening just when it matters the most.
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