Will Arsenal spoil Harry Kane’s homecoming with Bayern Munich?

For Harry Kane, going through Arsenal has at all times felt private. The dead-eyed willpower that has reworked him into one of many world’s elite strikers for England, Tottenham Hotspur and now Bayern Munich could be traced again in no small half to the painful rejection he skilled from the Gunners as a younger boy.

Kane joined Arsenal’s under-9s age group from Ridgeway Rovers — a grassroots membership based mostly in Chingford, Essex whose most well-known alumnus aside from Kane is David Beckham — however lasted a few years earlier than receiving the primary damning judgment of his profession. Arsenal’s then academy boss Liam Brady later described Kane as “a bit chubby” and “not very athletic.”

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Roy Massey, assistant coach of the membership’s academy from 1998 till 2014 claimed Kane provided to rework himself from a striker right into a goalkeeper, so determined he was to make the grade.

“I thought the least I could do was to send him to work with our keeper coach Alex Welch,” Massey stated. “Alex was one of the best in the business and after just a few sessions he told me ‘Roy, the lad is never going to make the grade in goal’, so this time Harry had to move on. I know how much it hurt him.”

Kane returned to Ridgeway and resumed his profession as a striker, scoring objectives nearly at will once more to earn a six-week trial by Tottenham.

Spurs initially opted to not lengthen their curiosity however whereas on a subsequent trial at Watford, Kane scored a hat trick towards them and Tottenham provided him a contract nearly instantly. He was 11, beginning a love affair with Arsenal’s closest rivals which might later blossom, through a circuitous route involving uneventful mortgage spells at Leyton Orient, Millwall, Norwich City and Leicester City.

Kane ultimately broke into the primary crew in 2014 and would go on to grow to be Tottenham’s all-time file goal-scorer earlier than leaving for Bayern final summer season in a deal value as much as €120 million.

King Kane on the Lane 👑#OnThisDay in 2015 @SpursOfficial surged again for an enormous north London derby win 👊 pic.twitter.com/QamM0Jqhh6

— Premier League (@premierleague) February 7, 2019

Tuesday’s Champions League quarterfinal first leg at Emirates Stadium sees Kane return to north London for the primary time since his departure, nonetheless fuelled by that previous disappointment and motivated by the continued quest to lastly finish his look forward to a primary main trophy.

Kane has not hidden his need for revenge on Arsenal. In a 2018 letter written in The Players’ Tribune to mark his a hundredth Premier League purpose, Kane recalled his first derby recreation towards Arsenal in February 2015: a 2-1 win wherein he scored each Tottenham objectives.

“We were in the tunnel, and I thought: ‘OK. Took me 12 years. But we’ll see who was right and who was wrong,'” he wrote. “The winner in the 86th minute was something that I’d never even dream of visualizing before a match. It was a header — probably the best header I’ve ever scored — and that feeling when it hit the back of the net … I’ve never felt a rush like that in my whole career. I remember walking round the pitch after the final whistle … and clapping to the fans … and it felt like: ‘Well, I told you so.'”

It is a message he has despatched with spectacular regularity ever since. Nobody has scored extra objectives in north London derbies than Kane, netting 14 instances in 19 video games, seven of which have been penalties.

As if to undermine the favored Tottenham chant of “Harry Kane, he’s one of our own” which supplied the soundtrack to his emergence, photos of the striker carrying an Arsenal shirt on the Gunners’ 2004 “Invincibles” league title parade emerged shortly after that recreation.

“I wanted to wear a Tottenham kit, but I don’t think that would’ve gone down well,” Kane stated in response. Kane’s need to enhance additionally had roots in his admiration for Tom Brady, who he stumbled throughout whereas struggling to get into the Leicester crew in 2013 — a spell when few may see him changing into a celebrity for membership and nation.

Kane was sat at residence watching NFL matches with rising curiosity. One day in between video games, he got here throughout a documentary entitled “Mr 199”, detailing the story of how Brady was the 199th choose in his draft class.

“It was genuinely inspiring to me,” Kane revealed. “Brady believed in himself so much — and he just kept working and working, almost obsessively, in order to get better.”

Kane’s obsession with enhancing could be the driving power behind pushing for a transfer to Bayern final summer season with a purpose to guarantee a profession wherein Tottenham and England’s file goal-scorer isn’t bereft of crew trophies. Spurs had grow to be top-four regulars and reached the 2019 Champions League ultimate below Mauricio Pochettino, however progress had undeniably stalled within the 4 subsequent years. Bayern appeared as near a assure of silverware as anybody may get on the highest stage.

There is, then, a substantial quantity of schadenfreude within the purple half of north London that Bayern look extremely more likely to lose the Bundesliga title for the primary time in 12 years as Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen maintain a 16-point benefit with six video games remaining.

Kane has scored 38 objectives in 37 video games throughout all competitions together with six in eight Champions League matches. Despite Bayern’s wider malaise, he has maintained his personal lethal kind — 32 league objectives is already a Bundesliga file for any participant in his debut season and he has Robert Lewandowski‘s all-time excessive of 41 in a single marketing campaign firmly in his sights.

But he’ll face arguably his sternest check in centre-back pairing William Saliba and Gabriel, who final week turned the primary defensive partnership to limit Manchester City striker Erling Haaland to zero pictures on course throughout each league video games in a season.

Kane has performed towards them twice beforehand, scoring a penalty in a 3-1 defeat at Emirates Stadium in October 2022 earlier than being shut out in a 2-0 residence loss in January 2023’s reverse fixture.

Arsenal have advanced since then to grow to be seemingly serial title challengers, however they haven’t been within the final eight of Europe’s premier membership competitors since 2010, having didn’t qualify since 2017 after which struggling seven consecutive exits on the round-of-16 stage earlier than that. Three of these defeats have been to Bayern, who inflicted a 10-2 mixture humiliation of the Gunners, profitable each legs 5-1.

Sources informed ESPN that these losses precipitated arguments throughout the squad on the time, with disagreements centering on some gamers believing others have been failing to take duty in huge moments. Arsenal have been broadly criticised for missing leaders throughout this era and sources added that there have been some gamers who privately agreed with that view.

Manager Mikel Arteta has generated a distinct feeling about Arsenal now. He was on the books as a participant for 5 of these round-of-16 exits and witnessed first-hand how the glass ceiling fashioned after which hardened over his teammates.

Kane isn’t the one one motivated by previous disappointment when Bayern face Arsenal this week.