Harry Kane is standing at the podium in the London Palladium to receive his first award of the night – for Striker of the Year – and his hands cannot rest.
The effort to stand still and look comfortable in his gorgeous suit is top of his mind, you can practically hear his wife Kate telling him, ‘You’ve got this, look straight out and stand tall’, and he’s doing an excellent job of that. But where to put his hands?
When called to the stage the first thing he must do is fasten a single button on his jacket. He knows you can’t sit buttoned up in a double-breasted suit, but the line won’t be correct when standing if left open.
That task complete, there’s more to be done, but his hands won’t forget. He starts to undo it again, catches himself, stops.
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When speaking this season about the near-automatic way he makes split-second decisions about body shape and movement on the pitch, it felt like Kane could break down the processes of each synapse, so clear are his thoughts.
Here’s just one sentence from that exceptional piece by Seb Stafford-Bloor in The Athletic: ‘I try to play on the half-turn as much as possible, so I can feel there’s a bit of space between me and the defender, so once I’ve had that touch, I’m then trying to process where the best place is to get a shot off — or where’s the quickest place to get a shot off.’
He’s talking about the build-up to the winner he scored against DR Congo to take England to the last 16 at this summer’s World Cup. He thinks it may be the best goal of his career, and the quality of his analysis is such that you can tell he’s got them all logged.
But standing up on stage in front of your peers, set to become the first Londoner ever to win the Ballon d’Or, there is a problem: not enough for him to think about. He’s dealing in minutes, not microseconds, and they pass too slowly. So, he fiddles.
When Kane drew level this month with Peter Shilton as most-capped Englishman on 125 appearances, he celebrated with two goals and an assist.
Afterwards he did as good a job as I’ve ever heard of explaining what takes an athlete to the absolute pinnacle: ‘I think sometimes players or people can reach the top and think it’s time to take their foot off the gas and that’s when you see players maybe fall.
‘For me it’s the opposite. When I’m at the top it’s to do even more, find even more improvement. That’s what I’m doing right now.’
This thirst for mastery is what led Kane to drop deeper into more of a ten role at Tottenham after becoming the most prolific No.9 in the Premier League.
In 2020-21 he was both top scorer and provider of the most assists. In honour of the achievement the Premier League awarded Ruben Dias player of the season. That is just one piece of evidence to back up the feeling common among Spurs fans that Kane has been underestimated – to the point of disrespect – for over a decade. Seventy-three goals in a season for club and country are more than any other man has ever achieved except the incomparable Lionel Messi – and he only did it once.
Yet there was still doubt Kane would ever be recognised as the best footballer in the world. When players like Ballon d’Or runner-up Kylian Mbappe and third-placed Lamine Yamal are mentioned it has always been with the hushed tones that denote greatness. Both were teen prodigies of course, winning World Cups at an age when Kane was on loan at Leyton Orient.
He has had to work. Everything about Kane the footballer has required hard, committed effort. To some that is why he lacks the otherworldly quality of his magnificent peers.
Harry is not really a celebrity, in the maximalist nature of football stardom: he has 100 million fewer followers on Instagram than Mbappe. He has forced his way into this club, time and time again, through sheer, bloody-minded graft.
That’s why when you see him standing up there at the podium, worrying at the buttons of his suit, you understand his thought processes. Take him off the pitch and he is just a guy.
People took awards host Thierry Henry’s assessment of Harry Kane that ‘work ethic is a talent’ to be a back-handed compliment. But he’s right, and to me that’s the most inspiring thing.
Harry Kane, everybody. The best footballer in the world.