Harry Kane reaches 100 Bundesliga goals and shows no sign of slowing down
By Tom Hancock
The previous record holder, Köln legend Dieter Müller, took 129 Bundesliga games to score 100 goals – hitting that milestone in 1977. Harry Kane has managed the feat in just 98 appearances; he could have gone until April without registering a league goal and he’d still have broken the record.
It’s been a history-making September for the England captain, whose winner against Elversberg took him to 150 goals in all competitions for Bayern – in only 153 appearances.
The 33-year-old has picked up where he left off last season, when he enjoyed a career-best 61-goal campaign, finishing as Bundesliga top scorer for the third time in as many years since joining Bayern from Tottenham.
We already knew Kane was one of the best strikers in the world, if not the best – but what we’re seeing now is that he might actually still be getting better, an astonishing possibility for a player who, based on your typical centre-forwards, should be some years past his peak (of course, Kane isn’t your typical centre-forward).
Speaking after his latest landmark achievement, Kane – who amassed 213 goals in 317 Premier League outings for Spurs, placing him behind only Alan Shearer in the competition’s all-time scoring charts – said: “I’m very proud, to be honest, to reach 100 goals in the Bundesliga. Obviously, I’ve done it in the Premier League, so now to have it in a different league is something I’m really proud of. All I can say is a big thanks to the team.”
Kane’s 101 Bundesliga goals have come at a truly prolific average of 1.03 per game. He’s already averaging 0.75 goals per game in the league this season and 0.85 in all competitions.
And none of this should come as any kind of surprise: his overall goals-per-game average for Bayern is 0.98. Were he to score a hat-trick in his side’s first match after the international break, away to local rivals Augsburg, he would pull himself to exactly a goal a game.
It’s little wonder Kane, who has found the net 44 times for club and country this calendar year, is considered one of the frontrunners to win the Ballon d’Or – an individual accolade he’s yet to claim in a career full of them. Oh, and he’s done it at exactly a goal a game.
More goalscoring milestones feel like an inevitability for Kane, who has reportedly been in talks over extending his stay at Bayern, where his current deal expires next summer.
He’s one of 56 players with 100 or more Bundesliga goals to their name – but one of only eight non-Germans. Barring a lengthy injury lay-off or unfathomable loss of form, he’ll almost certainly pass 106-goal Ailton (Brazil) and Stéphane Chapuisat (Switzerland) this term in the ranking of leading foreign Bundesliga scorers – and probably 127-goal Vedad Ibišević (Bosnia and Herzegovina) as well.
Kane can also keep working his way up Bayern’s list of top Bundesliga goalscorers – on which he currently ranks sixth. Next in his sights is Dieter Hoeneß (102 goals), followed by fellow 1980s star Roland Wohlfarth (119).
Another couple of par scoring seasons by his standards and Kane will catch two more Bayern icons: Thomas Müller (150 goals) and two-time Ballon d’Or winner Karl-Heinz Rummenigge (162). Only the top two goalscorers in Bundesliga history are – unless he keeps playing for Bayern and producing these levels into his 40s – out of his reach: Robert Lewandowski (312) and perhaps the greatest No. 9 of all time, Gerd Müller (365).
It’s also not out of the question that Kane will become Bayern’s second-highest Champions League scorer ever. He currently sits second with 34 goals, nine ahead of Arjen Robben and 23 behind Thomas Müller – and with his goals-per-game average for the club in that competition an expectedly high 0.87 as things stand, he could well surpass Müller by the end of next season if Bayern go even reasonably deep into the knockout stage.
And if contract talks progress as both parties will hope, Kane is bound to keep tearing up the division for a number of years yet.
(Images from IMAGO)
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