Will it finally be the first silverware for Harry Kane with England at FIFA World Cup 2026 in the USA, Canada and Mexico?
There is a strong chance. It’s going to be his last World Cup for sure. He is 32 years old and has had injury issues in recent years.
It will be a shame if Kane walks off into the sunset without winning a major tournament, particularly the World Cup. Though he has been close twice. In the last two Euros, England reached the final but lost to Italy and Spain respectively.
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In the 2018 World Cup in Russia, he won the Golden Boot with six goals in six matches; however, his team failed to proceed beyond the semis. They were stunned by Croatia. Four years ago, in 2022, they were knocked out by eventual runners-up France in the quarterfinals, with Kane missing a penalty.
One can say that that the former Tottenham Hotspur star has been close to winning on more than two occasions. In the season just gone by, Kane was prolific in front of goal. For Bayern Munich, he scored a whopping 64 goals in 56 games and won the Bundesliga — for the second time running — as well as the German Cup.
England haven’t won a World Cup since 1966. And they are yet to win the Euros. So, one can understand what agony their fans must be going through. This is their best chance to win a major tournament. Imagine that England boast one of the best football leagues in the world, and yet they struggle in big tournaments. And all these years, they also have had some of the finest footballers that the world has ever seen. It really doesn’t add up.
Kane is their all-time highest goalscorer with 79 goals in 113 matches. And since, to all intents and purposes, it’s going to be his last World Cup, he can’t have greater motivation to unleash his best. It will be good for international football too. They have had the usual suspects as winners in the last few decades.
In a 2026 World Cup warm-up against New Zealand a couple of days ago, Kane scored in a 1-0 win. In March against Uruguay and Japan, he didn’t play as part of Thomas Tuchel’s management of his workload in light of some injury issues, and England looked terrible. They drew with Uruguay and lost to Japan. Those two games underline how important Kane is to England’s World Cup aspirations.
Kane returns and England win!
After Kane’s return and goal against the Kiwis, Tuchel praised his captain unequivocally. “That’s what he does. He is always there to score. In the end, it is the decisive goal. Like always, no secrets there. If you score, it helps you and gives you a bit more rhythm, a bit more confidence. It is a bit easier for the second group to start with a 1-0. Harry is in top shape, and I think anyway, when the pressure comes, and the tournament starts, that will bring the best out of our players,” he said.
Former England striker Chris Sutton weighed in with some remarks of his own. “Harry Kane is so important that if he announced his international retirement this afternoon, everyone would instantly view England’s World Cup chances in a different, more pessimistic light,” he told BBC Sport.
