Former England manager Sir Gareth Southgate has said Harry Kane has not necessarily become a better player in the last two years but has more self-belief.
Kane and Southgate came agonisingly close to winning two trophies with England, losing both the 2021 and 2024 European Championship finals.
Following his move from Tottenham to Bayern Munich in 2023, Kane was also forced to wait for domestic honours as Bayer Leverkusen won the Bundesliga title in his first season in Germany.
Reflecting on Kane’s recent success, including winning two league titles with Bayern as well as the Ballon d’Or last month, Southgate said the biggest change in the England captain has been the belief he has in himself.
“I remember sitting with him the day after the [2024 European Championship] final in Germany, and he hadn’t got over the line … he’d had a year at Munich, hadn’t got over the line in Munich, and I remember sitting with him and saying ‘this time next year you’ll have won the league with Munich and you’ll feel completely different about things,'” Southgate told ITV.
“That was a fairly safe bet. But I think you can see what that’s done for him.
“I actually don’t see a better player, but I see a player that believes he can win and I see a player that … I mean what’s happened to him in the last month alone would have given him another boost of confidence.
“If you sit there and you think: ‘My peers, experts, the world has voted me as the best player in the world,’ my goodness, how good is that going to make you feel when you’ve been a player that people said can’t even make it as a professional.”
Kane, 33, beat Kylian Mbappé and Lamine Yamal to this year’s Ballon d’Or, becoming the first English player to do so in 25 years.
He scored 73 goals last season as Bayern won the Bundesliga and reached the Champions League semifinals. He led England to a third place finish at the World Cup after they also reached the semifinals in the United States.
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Asked how he felt watching his former captain be crowned the best player in the world, Southgate said: “Just absolutely delighted for him and his family. I’ve seen so much of that journey.
“People say coaches that work with these players should take credit, and of course people help them along the way, but ultimately the players have to apply those pieces of advice, they have to put the hours in, the have to have the commitment.”
