Harry Kane: England's Golden Boy, 25 Years in the Making

Harry Kane: England's Golden Boy, 25 Years in the Making3 dagen geleden12 min

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Harry Kane has won the 2026 Ballon d'Or! After 25 long years, an English footballer has finally been crowned the best player in the world. And it's Harry Kane, the former Tottenham Hotspur striker who had to move to Germany to start collecting trophies. There's probably a lesson in that somewhere. Particularly for Spurs.In this episode of Mark and Pete, we celebrate Harry Kane's extraordinary achievement, look back at the five English footballers who have won the Ballon d'Or, and ask whether England's greatest modern goalscorer might actually be one of the finest footballers this country has ever produced.Because the statistics are, frankly, ridiculous.During the 2025/26 season, Kane scored an astonishing 73 goals in just 65 appearances for Bayern Munich and England. That's 61 goals for Bayern and another 12 for his country. He also scored 14 times in the UEFA Champions League.Seventy-three goals. In one season.Some footballers don't manage that in an entire career. And quite a few Premier League strikers seem perfectly content to have a nice little jog around the penalty area and collect their wages.But Kane is different.At 33, he's playing arguably the best football of his life. He's helped Bayern Munich win the Bundesliga, the German Cup and the German Super Cup. He's finished as the Bundesliga's leading scorer for three consecutive seasons, and his performances helped England finish third at the 2026 FIFA World Cup.And now he's beaten Kylian Mbappé and Barcelona's young superstar Lamine Yamal to football's most prestigious individual prize.Not bad for a lad who was once loaned out to Leyton Orient, Millwall, Norwich City and Leicester City.The Ballon d'Or ceremony took place at the London Palladium on 26 October 2026, marking the award's 70th anniversary. Rather fittingly, it was the first time the ceremony had been held outside Paris.And rather fittingly again, Kane became only the fifth Englishman ever to win the Ballon d'Or.The others? Sir Stanley Matthews in 1956, Sir Bobby Charlton in 1966, Kevin Keegan in 1978 and 1979, and Michael Owen in 2001.That's it. Five Englishmen in seventy years.