Once again, Harry Kane is the first name on the England football team teamsheet. Lee Carsley was still in Athens when he confirmed the captain would start on Sunday. For eight years, Gareth Southgate rarely needed to offer that information three days early, to try and deflect charges Kane had fallen out of favour. If he was fit, he played.
Now? Kane was fit and began on the bench against Greece. Others were fit, the striker had implied, and did not turn up. Kane appeared to be the last man standing up for the values of the Southgate era, when players enjoyed turning up for international duty. Carsley refused to criticise the no-shows, was happy to finish with a glorified Under-21 side and beat Greece 3-0. Kane had a bit-part role.
He had been outspoken before the game, Carsley more cautious. The interim manager showed a bolder streak in his choices. Yet his post-match rhetoric invited a question: when is a dropping not a dropping?
“I definitely didn’t drop Harry Kane,” he insisted. “He’s done well for me every game he’s played and been involved with. It wasn’t a case of being dropped, far from it, it was just a case of giving someone an opportunity.”
For many another, omitting a fit, normally first-choice player from a competitive game qualifies as dropping him. Carsley claimed not. He was justified in opting for Ollie Watkins when Kane’s usual understudy got the seventh-minute opener. Carsley did not really crow. “Ollie is playing in the Champions League with Villa, he’s doing really well, the same with Morgan Rogers,” he said. “It’s great that he got a goal. It looks like a great decision then, doesn’t it?”
There have been points when Kane’s pre-eminence came amid a lack of options. Not now, with Watkins’ rise, his Euro 2024 semi-final winner, and Dominic Solanke offering another alternative. And yet the greats – and by England’s standards, their record scorer, a World Cup Golden Boot winner and the only man to captain them in two finals, definitely qualifies – tend to be protected, no matter which players of lesser pedigree are excelling at club level.
Carsley dropped – or rotated or sidelined to give someone else an opportunity – Kane when he is in form for Bayern Munich, with 16 goals in 17 games.
Southgate kept Kane in the team throughout Euro 2024, albeit taking to substituting a labouring presence. Yet keeping Kane on the pitch for most of the tournament, and with him as penalty-taker, meant he still got another Golden Boot. It was an achievement of sorts.
The chances are that Thomas Tuchel will conform to Southgate’s school of thought: that Kane plays. He always did for Tuchel’s Bayern, though he did score 44 goals in 45 games after his €100m move; Kane could have hardly picked an England manager more likely to restore his privileged status. Carsley’s great experiment, or risk, came in the context that it might not actually change England’s history at all.
But there was a tactical significance. “We’ve got some explosive players in the team and we had legs,” Carsley said. In contrast, Kane looked leggy in Euro 2024. And the balance of the team was different now. Each of the front three had both the speed and the willingness to run behind defences, whereas too few players did that in the summer. Watkins had two fine chances: he spurned the second, but it came from a defence-splitting pass from Rico Lewis and a burst behind the Greece back four. Could Kane have done that?
That capacity to stretch the game may suit Jude Bellingham, freeing up room behind the striker for him, rather than having Kane drop off to crowd him.
Euro 2024 furthered a theory that Kane should have a different kind of withdrawn role: withdrawing from international football completely. And yet, as he told his missing teammates this week, England comes first. “It’s fair to say he wants to play every game,” said Carsley. And Kane’s critique of the missing men means it would be harder for him to opt out of England were he demoted to the rank of squad player. But there are incentives for a man who would like 100 international goals; 68 down, 32 to go. It is harder to reach that target from the bench.
And Kane can seek to emulate the men who do not vacate the stage. Last year, he cited Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo as players who “almost” got better after their 30th birthdays. He said he was hoping to be around for Euro 2028. The finisher did not think he was finished. He mentioned Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Robert Lewandowski, too: he is famously an admirer of Tom Brady, whose last NFL game came at 45.
Lewandowski still has to carry Poland: they possess no comparable attacking talents. But England do, like Portugal. Ronaldo’s Portugal is more star vehicle than football team.
Carsley’s England felt the opposite with a front three of Anthony Gordon, Watkins and Noni Madueke. The big names will presumably be back for Tuchel, probably led by Kane, though he faces the question that Southgate struggled with, of how to get the best from each when they are all chosen. The German’s short-term deal means he has less need to phase out Kane. But it will be an issue for Carsley’s successors at some point, and Watkins showed there are other ways of playing.
