This article is part of Football FanCast’s Opinion series, which provides analysis, insight and opinion on any issue within the beautiful game, from Paul Pogba’s haircuts to League Two relegation battles…
Harry Kane has to leave Tottenham Hotspur to win trophies.
This is a truth almost universally acknowledged by those outside of Tottenham Hotspur.
Even Tim Sherwood, the club’s former manager, said this week that the England international would give it until the end of next season before packing his bag and leaving, provided the club’s trophy drought continued.
They last lifted silverware in 2008, winning the League Cup at Wembley at Chelsea’s expense. That is despite reaching a Champions League final and another League Cup final under the management of Mauricio Pochettino. Two title challenges also came, ultimately, to nothing.
And isn’t that what this game is about, really; glory; trophies; medals; baubles that can go in a cabinet, to be reminisced over when a player is retired?
Well, no. Not really.
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This game is about love, really, and when one examines the best one-club men in history, a common thread appears – a lack of trophies.
Francesco Totti, perhaps the greatest Italian footballer of his generation, won one Serie A title during his time at Roma. Matt Le Tissier, a hero even of Barcelona icon Xavi, never won a single medal at Southampton. Think too of the likes of Ledley King at Spurs – that solitary League Cup is his only medal yet he was perhaps one of the finest centre-backs in Premier League history – and Bill Nicholson, the legendary manager of the club, who won the First Division just once as a player but was the mastermind behind the team that won the double.
Both of the latter are revered to this day at Spurs, with King’s famous quote, “This is my club, my one and only club”, etched into the club’s stadium signage.
Kane could have that.
Of course, he’s world-class and a striker that would walk into pretty much any team in world football. He has scored 177 goals in 270 appearances. He is England’s captain and perhaps the best forward this country has produced since Alan Shearer. He could even break the Newcastle United legend’s Premier League goalscoring record.
Back in 2015, after Kane had burst onto the scene by scoring 21 league goals in his first full season at the club, Telegraph journalist Jason Burt asked him why he had chosen to take the No.10 shirt.
“I want to become a club legend”, was the reply.
He is well on course.
If he can help Spurs win some silverware along the way, then that will be all the better but the truth of the matter is this: It doesn’t really matter.
What does matter is staying power, is proving to a fanbase that you and they are the same, that you share the same hopes and the same dreams and that you share some magical moments along the way.
Le Tissier did that at Southampton. Totti did it at Roma. King did it at Spurs.
Kane could be the next in line, regardless of whether or not a winners’ medal is draped around his neck.
Meanwhile, the future of one Spurs star may have been decided.
