Say football teams were like juries. That they could be purged of people the counsels did not like. That England could object to one or two names in Holland’s starting XI. That Holland could do the same. Who would Ronald Koeman chuck out? One imagines his first expulsion would be Harry Kane.
Get rid of England’s all-time leading goalscorer. Get rid of the captain. Get rid of Gareth Southgate’s talisman since he came into the job. Get rid of a penalty taker. And yet many would advocate doing that to ourselves. The only movement more vocal than the one decrying Southgate’s stewardship, as he apparently flukes his third semi-final in four major tournaments, is that which would jettison his centre forward too.
Kane has scored twice in five games here in Germany, goals that have been vital in securing England’s passage to their semi-final in Dortmund. The opener against Denmark; an extra-time winner against Slovakia. The tournament’s top scorer up to this point has got only three. Yet Kane is one off and England’s problem, we hear. If Southgate were a bold manager, Kane should go. There have even been pockets of hope that his late tumble against Switzerland might have made the manager’s decision for him. Heaven knows what they make of it in the Dutch camp. Perhaps they just cross their fingers and hope it is all true.
Kane has faced Virgil van Dijk only five times in English football — quite a few games have been missed by the Dutchman — and in three of those he has scored. His record might not be as immediately eye-catching as the hat-trick Ollie Watkins collected for Aston Villa against Liverpool in 2020, which must rank as one of Van Dijk’s worst days in football, as part of a defence conceding seven goals, yet Kane’s numbers reveal, as ever, a consistent body of work. “Anyone who is facing England would like to see Harry Kane not playing,” Trent Alexander-Arnold said when asked to predict his club-mate’s views on this supposed selection dilemma.
If Sir Alf Ramsey had lost the 1966 World Cup final, having decided against recalling Jimmy Greaves, maybe we wouldn’t be having this debate. Yet he won so, as English triumph is vanishingly rare, just about anything he did is seen as a blueprint. We’re looking for clues, really. Yet, equally, the noises off about Kane are not echoed in the England camp. Two defenders, Alexander-Arnold and Luke Shaw, who have known Kane as an international team-mate and club opponent spoke on Monday, with not a hint of uncertainty in their voices. That is the definition of a talisman. A person that has come to represent or inspire a group; a charm that brings positivity and good luck.
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Those advocating Kane’s exile — and it is not a wholly outlandish case given he most certainly hasn’t been at his best so far — are not factoring in the shock that would be felt within the squad at that decision. It would unsettle, it would concern. England’s players have grown used to seeing Kane, to rallying around him, to being rallied by him. There may be a time for a change, but with players of his greatness — “we are talking about England’s record goalscorer,” as Alexander-Arnold pointed out, with the clear inference a bit more respect is due — clean breaks tend to be made post-tournament, not on the day of a semi-final. That was what was so brutal about the way Graham Taylor chose to end Gary Lineker’s career, mid-match. Even the man replacing him, Alan Smith, found the timing strange. And you will notice England didn’t go on to win that day, either.
“It’s really important for us that he’s on the pitch,” Shaw insisted, of Kane. “He brings leadership firstly, and when he’s there he makes other players feel positive, because he’s our leading goalscorer and, at any time, can make that difference. He’s a very important player, he’s our captain, he’s world class. Of course, there’s an aura about him. He speaks a lot for the team, he speaks in meetings, he’s our leader, he leads by example and we all follow him.”
The idea of Kane, the leader of men, is one that some beyond the confines of the camp will find hard to comprehend. The play, Dear England, is almost deferential in its attitude to England’s manager and many of the staff around him, particularly the professional class whose psychological coaching changed England’s mindset. Yet Kane it treats as a figure of fun. A little dim, but earnest and willing, he is played for laughs and theatre audiences — mostly middle class, educated — are in on the joke.
It is one of the aspects that jars. Kane has a distinctive voice and accent, but Southgate has used psychology perhaps better than any England manager in history, and this is his captain. So Kane can’t be thick. And he can’t be a man who is selfish, or the subject of jokes and sneers behind his back. When Southgate and England embarked on that famous Royal Marines course, to a man the soldiers identified Kane as the group’s outstanding leader. So, without him, England lose more than goals. They lose the compass.
“As our captain, he is someone who puts everything into games,” Alexander-Arnold continued. “He gives the team talk before we go out, but he is even more a leader as a professional and an athlete, somebody who is exemplary, gives everything to the game and everything to the team and leaves no stone unturned when it comes to how he dedicates himself to his role within it. He is part of the reason why the environment is such a good one within camp. And a reason why we are heading to a semi-final. People will always have opinions, but whether or not he is getting criticised, where we are on Wednesday he must be doing something right.”
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And Holland know it too. They know the destabilising influence of dropping Kane, akin to changing Jordan Pickford as goalkeeper. They know the confidence surrendered too. The one chance that drops. Who does the nation, or the team for that matter, want it to fall to? Kane is the security blanket. As much as we admire his rivals and contemporaries, we trust him. He isn’t playing well. He is dropping too deep, focused on his defensive duties, even great goalscorers like Lineker, Ian Wright and Alan Shearer have resigned from the No9 union to offer criticism. And yet, feeding off scraps, his two goals were both superbly taken. Let’s face it, ditching him would be a gamble. And Southgate’s no gambler.
“I always say he is the best finisher I have seen or played with,” said Alexander-Arnold, so let’s take a short break right there and list a few names being placed down the pecking order. And just limit it to “played with”, because those Alexander-Arnold has “seen” would take up the whole page, and we’d be dealing with angry missives from Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo fanboys all night. So strikers Alexander-Arnold has played with and doesn’t fancy as much as Kane.
Mohamed Salah, Wayne Rooney, Sadio Mané, Jamie Vardy, Marcus Rashford, Roberto Firmino, Daniel Sturridge, Cody Gakpo, Darwin Núñez, Danny Ings, Divock Origi, Ollie Watkins, Ivan Toney, Dominic Solanke, Danny Welbeck, Luis Díaz, Callum Wilson, Jarrod Bowen. Not bad, eh?
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“England’s record goalscorer is as big as anything you can say about him,” he continued. “He’s already helped us win games here, he’s a threat. Anything in and around the box, you need to be on red alert. He can finish it from any angle, from anywhere. He can drop down and build play up and his hold-up play is incredible too. All round, he’s just a fantastic player.”
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“We know what he can deliver, and that’s important goals at important times,” Shaw said. If you give him time in and around the box, he scores. We know that, we see it day in day out in training, we know the quality he brings to the team. He’s just the same Harry we’ve had from the start of the camp, you know. Nothing’s changed.”
And if Southgate is sensible, he’ll keep it that way. Sorry, Virgil.
