This has been the story of Kane’s career. Six finals – and not a goal in any of them. At Tottenham Hotspur he came into the 2019 Champions League final barely fit. The same was the case with the 2021 League Cup final against Chelsea. In the 2019 League Cup final, the 2020 European Championship final, played three years ago, and last season’s DFB-Supercup, a German Community Shield equivalent, there were no goals either.
This one may hurt the most. A great player facing the chance of a lifetime, captaining England for the second time in a major final and nothing like the goalscorer he truly is. They say that for some footballers the biggest games arrive at the wrong times and for Kane that may be the way it goes now. He has been the leader of this generation, a great unlikely goalscoring phenomenon who came late on the scene – relatively speaking – and has never looked back.
At this tournament, he has found himself substituted when it mattered most, in each of the knockout games. The old powers were ebbing and how England missed the Kane of old and his goals. It was entirely in keeping that Kane still managed to finish top goalscorer in this tournament – an honour shared with others but nonetheless some evidence that he can still operate on the thinnest of resources.
What next it is hard to say. Kane’s career has been defined by a relentless determination to keep going and to find ways around the obstacles thrown in his path. One might even say that it is his special power, and one that he has triumphantly wielded from his days as a youngster when few fancied his chances of playing at the highest level.
He may yet come back and add more to that great tower of England goals he already has. But it is hard to see him having another opportunity like this.