Is Kane's Curse Finally Going To Be Lifted?
Harry Kane could finally end his wait for silverware tomorrow in the Bundesliga...
Hello and welcome back to The Overlap Newsletter! Liverpool celebrated a 20th English top-flight title on Sunday after beating Tottenham 5-1 to secure their second Premier League title. With Liverpool’s first title win coming during the COVID-19 pandemic, it prevented fans from celebrating on home soil. But not this time, as the emotion and celebration erupted around Anfield! This title win also means that Liverpool equal Manchester United’s record of 20 top-flight titles. Arne Slot has become the third youngest manager to lead a team to a Premier League title and is just one of five men to have won it in their first season. Virgil van Dijk is the first player from the Netherlands to captain a side to the English top-flight title and it is only the second time that the Premier League has been won by a team whose manager and captain were from the same nation (after Arsenal 2003-04 under Arsène Wenger and captain Patrick Vieira). As stated by Opta, Slot’s side have scored in 33 of their 34 Premier League games this season. If they score in each of their four remaining games, they’d become just the fifth team in Premier League history to score in at least 37 different matches after Arsenal (all 38 in 2001-02), Blackburn (37 in 1994-95), Chelsea (37 in 2009-10), Newcastle (37 in 1993-94) and Liverpool themselves (37 in 2021-22).
Both Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur won in their first-leg of the Europa League Semi-Final last night. Will either side make it to the final and go all the way? Take our poll below:
Catch the latest episode of Stick To Football on The Overlap Youtube Channel as the team are joined by none other than Ruud Gullit — Ballon d'Or winner, footballing trailblazer, and one of the game’s all-time icons. Listen to the latest episode of It Was What It Was following the link below as Jonathan Wilson and Rob Draper turn their attention to Liverpool’s extraordinary journey through their history, culminating in Arne Slot’s Premier League title-winning side:
Quiz Question…
Arne Slot has joined an exclusive group of just five men to have won the Premier League title in their first season, can you name the other four managers?
Answer to follow at the end of the Newsletter…
Stick To Football Behind The Scenes: Ruud Gullit
THE ART OF BEING RELATABLE: WILL UNATHLETIC REJECT KANE FINALLY GET HIS MEDAL?
By Rob Draper, co-host It Was What It Was
This weekend in Leipzig one of football’s longest-standing trolling memes may be no more. The fact that Harry Kane has never won a major trophy is extraordinary. It is hard to think of a player in the modern age who is as good and yet has had no club success, though if you trawl through the history books you will find the great Brazilian Socrates and England’s 20th century superstars Tom Finney and Johnny Haynes also won zero trophies. Sir Stanley Matthews won just one FA Cup, admittedly in a final that was subsequently named after him.
Yet Kane’s plight in the modern age as a cheap laugher line or a means for keyboard warriors to manifest their own existential angst by suggesting he is some kind of mentally-fragile loser seems to be about to come to an end. Perhaps not this weekend, because going away to RB Leipzig is no guaranteed win for Bayern Munich and they still need two points to secure the Bundesliga. Yet it is almost certain in coming weeks that Bayern and Kane will win that trophy.
His Jonah complex must have reached its zenith last season when, having joined the winningest team in European football history, he stumbled upon the one season they won nothing. Now that normal service looks to be resumed, with Bayern about to win their 12th Bundesliga in 13 years, Kane will surely have his moment.
Next week on It Was What It Was we take a look at Kane’s origin story and it is a genuinely fascinating and inspirational tale. Because “brilliant teenager does brilliantly, scores lots of goals at Junior, Under 21 and senior level” is not a gripping pitch for Netflix series. “Unathletic reject, benched by Norwich and Leicester, become world's greatest centre forward” is better.
When he was on loan at Norwich in 2012-13 (career summary: 5 games, 0 goals, 1 assist, 51 touches) he was so bad he was relegated to the Under 21s. “Just another loanee that wasn’t quite cutting it with the first team” remembered one Under 21 team-mate. On winning a penalty in that game, the Norwich Under-21 lads wouldn’t even let him take that because his team-mate Olumide Durojaiye was above him in the penalty-taking hierarchy.
In his only Premier League start for Norwich, he was “beaten up” by Winston Reid and in the FA Cup third round tie against then non-league Luton he was so bad he was taken off at half time in a game which was ultimately historic in that top-flight Norwich lost 1-0.
Tottenham brought him home because he couldn’t get a game and sent him off to Championship Leicester where he swiftly ended up back on the bench, famously joining Jamie Vardy among the Leicester subs for the unsuccessful play-off semi final against Watford.
Which apart from providing a handy life lesson on resilience and never giving up is also a means by which to appreciate Kane. Released by Arsenal at the age of eight for being “chubby” according to Liam Brady, Kane is not in that Wayne Rooney/Jude Bellingham category where football life just falls into place at every turn and it’s clear before you‘ve even left school that the senior England team will be built around you for the next decade.
All success is hard earned but for Rooney and Bellingham it was about ensuring they did not squander their considerable talent. For Kane it was different. He needed to amplify every scintilla of an advantage he had to the absolute max just to get noticed.
One coach who knew him at Spurs as a teenager said; “He has extraordinary capacity for self reflection and a fierce determination. So any message you needed to relay to him, he only had to be told once.” If he needed to build up his athleticism, he would get in early to use the gym. If his shooting required improvement, he would be out after training with a bundle of balls. No-one - literally no-one - saw what was coming in terms of his career trajectory. There was even talk as to whether to keep him. But one thing they did recognise was that his body movement was exceptional. By which coaches mean the ability to soften the torso and shoulders, allowing the ball to fall across the body, so that you are in the perfect position to strike. It's a micro detail only a top scout would spot but it was enough to give Kane an edge.
It took time to add the skills with which we’re now familiar - that ferocious shot, the astonishing range of metronomic finishing, a degree of athleticism and stamina and perhaps crucially (and ironically given the trolls) a steely mental strength. But put all that together and you have created one of England’s greatest footballers. His 71 goals and counting for England is unlikely to be suprassd in the next 25 years. And now, to go with all those individual awards there should be a team medal.
My co-host Jonathan Wilson is strongly of the opinion that we make much too much of trophies won when judging a player. Plenty of good, solid, workmanlike players have a whole stack of medals by virtue of being reliable in a good team. Many superstars have comparatively few. Alan Shearer has just one Premier League winners medal in his entire career but it doesn't diminish his status as a great player. It was surely frustrating for him at the time but like Finney, Haynes and, for much of his career Kane, it was largely a consequence of playing for the club he loved and supported.
As Jonathan points out in next week’s episode, now Kane is likely to get his medal, it doesn’t suddenly make him a much better player than he was last week. It just means trolls have to adjust their act. (“PEOPLE SAY HE'S GREAT BUT HE ONLY EVER WON THE BUNDESLIGA!!! #FAIL!!!”) And yet it will be a relief. If ever a player deserved it Kane does. He is that rare thing in the game, a brilliant player made utterly relatable by his failures.
Quiz Answer:
Antonio Conte (2016-17)
Manuel Pellegrini (2013-14)
Carlo Ancelotti (2009-10)
Jose Mourinho (2004-05)