It is rare that Harry Kane celebrates goals with fire in his eyes.
But on Wednesday he did, after scoring Bayern Munich’s first in their 3-0 dismantling of Bayer Leverkusen.
That meant something — and more than just the lead in an important game. Kane thumped his header past goalkeeper Matej Kovar before racing away to the corner flag, his muscles taut, his face contorted.
No wonder. Kane had been searching for that moment since he arrived in Germany 18 months ago. Finally, it arrived — the ‘big’ goal, the one he has been accused of not being able to score for Bayern. By the end of the night, he had also given a signature performance, too. Kane has often played well for Bayern. Rarely with as much urgency and energy, though, and never with the accompanying class when it absolutely mattered.
1-0! Harry Kane does it on the big stage! 🏟️🔥
What about that cross from Olise too ❄️
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It was an important night at Allianz Arena. For Leverkusen, it was full of calamities and self-inflicted wounds. Nordi Mukiele was sent off for two clumsy fouls. Kovar made a nightmarish mistake to gift Bayern a second goal. Edmond Tapsoba needlessly fouled Kane for a penalty that the England captain steered into the top corner.
And yet this was not simply the case of a German team shrinking against Bayern. Rather, Leverkusen fractured under a pressure that was exerted upon them. Bild, the German tabloid, described Bayern’s performance as a “demonstration of power” and that was an apt description that could just as easily have been applied to Kane.
He began the move that led to his first goal, dropping into midfield between Mukiele and Granit Xhaka, before spreading the play for Michael Olise in space. Later in the first half, he surrendered possession cheaply, before chasing back, deep into his own half, to shoulder Florian Wirtz over the touchline and recover the ball.
There was the physical edge to him throughout the night. It was there in little confrontations, in his shoving and barging of defenders, and in the way he threw his weight around. Bayern had their ego bruised by Leverkusen’s dominance last season and a real antipathy has started to grow between the two sides. Increasingly, these games have become fractious and ever-so-slightly nasty and Kane seemed to relish that on Wednesday, like many of his team-mates.
That intensity is easy to understand. Clearly, Bayern’s players have heard enough Leverkusen tributes and have grown weary of the praise for Xabi Alonso, Wirtz and the rest.
For Kane, there was most likely an individual aspect to it, too. He suffered through last season’s ugly third-place league finish and another missed chance to win a first major trophy. But the criticism of his performances for Bayern has been growing louder for some time and among the many motivating factors, that was surely at work.
That discourse has been volatile. When he joined Bayern, Kane’s presence alone was initially sustenance for a league that needed a new star. In those early days and weeks, the types of goals he scored were not as important. Tap-in, long-ranger, penalty; nothing mattered more than the steady beat of the scoring itself and the replacement of a supply that had departed when Robert Lewandowski was sold to Barcelona in 2022.
But as it became clear that Bayern would be no match for Alonso’s Leverkusen and that 11 straight titles would not become 12, everybody complicit in allowing that streak to end found themselves under fire.
Kane was not a primary target — he scored 36 times from 32 league games during that first season — but the more Bayern’s form wavered, the more holes were picked in his contribution. What kind of goals was he scoring? Who was he scoring them against? Were they from open play or the penalty spot?
That conversation rumbled in the background. In October 2024, Kane was goalless in games against Leverkusen (1-1), Aston Villa (1-0) and Eintracht Frankfurt (3-3), all within the space of a week, and the accusations became much more direct.
“He wasn’t signed to score a hat-trick against Darmstadt,” former Bayern and Germany midfielder Dietmar Hamann wrote in his column for Sky Sports Germany.
“What good are three goals against Kiel if he doesn’t even get a shot on goal in a big game like yesterday?” read an opinion piece in Bild, the day after the draw with Leverkusen in the Bundesliga that started that week. There were many more and that vein of coverage has, in fits and starts, been relatively consistent ever since.
Has it been fair? Yes and no. Bayern’s standards had been extremely high for much of the decade before Kane arrived and players had always been judged harshly. He was not experiencing anything unusual. When Kane completed his move, Mario Gomez — who scored 75 Bundesliga goals in 115 appearances between 2009 and 2013 for the club — issued a prescient warning.
“People always expect a Bayern striker to score,” he told Marca. “But if you score one goal, they want you to score two and it goes on and on.”
Still, it would be disingenuous to claim Kane has been held to an impossible standard. There have been times when he has not delivered when it mattered and when, unfortunately, he has not been fit enough to be at his best at critical moments.
Think of the Champions League semi-final against Real Madrid last season, for instance, when a back injury forced him off with five minutes to play and, jarringly, seconds before Joselu equalised in the Bernabeu and set Real on their path to Wembley instead.
But the rights and wrongs are irrelevant. Kane comes across as the kind of player who is aware of exactly what is being written and said about his performances all the time. To that extent, litigating whether criticism has been justified or not is redundant, and secondary to the fact that it has existed, has been vicious at times, and that Kane has had to fight against it.
In that light, it becomes easy to understand the relief of Wednesday and a goal and performance which — in all sorts of ways — appeared to matter an awful lot.
(Top photo: Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)
