Sport | Football
Plenty here inside the stadium did not spot Martin Zubimendi, just another of the kind of genius Spanish technical midfielders England lack, sneaking on to the pitch as a substitute at half-time. More still, did not immediately notice who had gone off.
Only once the football was back under way, and Rodri’s substitution confirmed over the public address, did the gasp go up, as if this was a stadium watching its spectacle on satellite delay.
The withdrawal of England’s own totem 15 minutes later, though, brought no such shock. The once unthinkable has been normalised this summer, the change of the striking guard now a predictable, ritual act, and an increasingly early one at that.
The board goes up, No9 in red, the captain’s armband finds a new home. Then here comes Harry Kane, sprinting towards the touchline with an accepting eagerness that reminds you he is not Cristiano Ronaldo and that, outwardly at least, this is all fine, all for the team. Tellingly, though, it is also about as urgently as he has moved all night.
So on goes Ollie Watkins, and with that Kane’s underwhelming summer ends. He has led England out in another major tournament final, the first man to do so twice, and leaves as a Golden Boot winner, albeit shared with five other players, not even enough for a toe apiece.
But another of the sport’s showpiece occasions had passed one of its modern greats by, five major career finals now gone without silverware, or even a goal, and the count of his penalty-box touches across the two in European Championships still stuck on one. Jack Grealish managed just as many, despite only coming on in extra-time against Italy at Wembley three years ago, and spending yesterday watching a different Spanish triumph, on Wimbledon’s Centre Court.
Damning as the numbers were, though, the eye test was worse. Even if crowded out of the most dangerous areas, Kane at his best can influence games in different ways; on the spin from deep, in the air, in the mind.
There was none of that here, nor has there been for most of the campaign. England’s attacks have slowed through coming into contact with their skipper, their crosses been easily cleared for the lack of a dart across the first man, their football often sprightlier for the pace of Watkins or presence of Ivan Toney late on. Cruel as it sounds, if Rodri’s departure briefly felt like an opportunity for England, so did Kane’s.
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How to explain it all? The obvious answer remains unacknowledged, the suspicion that the back injury which curtailed Kane’s season at Bayern Munich had — and is still having — a more debilitating impact than either the player or England have let on.
“Physically, it’s been a tough period for Harry,” Gareth Southgate said last night, the closest he has come to an admission. “He came in short of games and didn’t quite get up to the level we’d all hope.”
We can only speculate, but it feels inevitable there will be a fuller admission from Kane himself somewhere down the line. What, exactly, did playing with an immobile spearhead for an hour cost England? In a game of fine margins, it is tempting to say a fair bit, though had Spain been more ruthless after half-time the gap would have been greater and the temptation far less. In any case, leaving his talisman out, having stuck by him through six games this summer, and owed so much to him across eight years, was a call Southgate was never going to make.
Nor should he, or whoever comes next, be thinking that way now. Kane looks unfit, not finished. He has just scored 44 goals in a single year at Bayern, will probably do something similar next season and then again the season after that. He will only be 32 when the next World Cup starts in 2026, will remain England’s figurehead and, on balance of probability, will have cracked his silverware duck.
There was, though, a sense that it was supposed to happen here, perfectly orchestrated, a trophy with England to mean more than just another Bundesliga bowl among Bayern’s crockery glut. As far as Kane’s peak years go, there may be only one opportunity left.
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