Harry Kane: I wanted to win trophies at Tottenham, but moving to Bayern Munich will make me a better player and help England at the European Championship next summer.
Kane joined the perennial Bundesliga champions from Tottenham in a move worth at least £100 million in July, after nine years without a title at his boyhood club.
The England captain, who is preparing for Saturday’s Euros qualifier against Ukraine in Wroclaw, Poland, has already scored three goals in three starts for his new club and believes that playing in a more pressured environment would help him prepare for Euro 2024, which will be contested in Germany.
“I believe it will,” Kane predicted. “Whether I win or lose, the decision to join Bayern was based on putting me in those situations.”
“With Bayern Munich, we sometimes expect them to win because they have won [the Bundesliga title] for the last 11 or 12 years.”
“However, in my short time here, there is still a lot of pressure to win these trophies.” We haven’t won the cup in a few years, and we haven’t won the Champions League in a few years, so there’s a lot to play for and a lot of pressure to bear.
“Of course, there is no hiding the fact it [silverware] is the one thing missing from my career at the moment and when you have got players in the [England] squad who have won things you want to be part of that as well and have those experiences as well,” Kane added.
“Just the experiences of having title runs and cup runs and hopefully a Champions League run will only add, hopefully, to handling pressure in certain situations. If we are going to win anything with England we are going to have to deal with that.
Over the years, Kane has watched several of his England teammates win the biggest prizes in the game, among them Kyle Walker, who left Spurs for Manchester City in 2017 and has won 13 major honours, including five League titles and the Champions League.
The 30-year-old admitted it occasionally “hurt” seeing his colleagues winning silverware and said it motivated him to claim his first club trophies with Bayern.
“As a competitor, when the boys are playing the Champions League and I am just sitting at home watching it, I would be lying if I said there wasn’t a part of me that hurt,” he said.
“Of course, I want them to do well — Kyle and all those guys to win when they are in competitions I am not in — but a part of me wants to have those experiences. With the other players in the team having done that, I am not sure jealous is the right word, but it does motivate me to go on and try to push myself towards some of those trophies the guys have got.”
There was long a suggestion that Kane was reluctant to leave English football while he remained in the hunt for the all-time Premier League scoring record but he left Spurs just 47 goals shy of Alan Shearer’s total of 260.
“I think there was a lot of talk about it and the fact I was getting closer to it but I have never been anybody who has chased individual honours ahead of team awards,” Kane said.
“Ultimately it comes down to me to see how good I can be and I felt like I had to be playing Champions League football and competing for titles each year. Bayern Munich definitely gives me that.
“The record of course would be amazing and it might be amazing if one day I do end up breaking it. But it is not why I play football and my move shows that.”
The Champions League Final will be staged at Wembley this year, while the European Championship will be contested in Kane’s new home of Germany, with Kane aware that doing the double with Bayern and England would be a scriptwriter’s dream.
“I’ve heard about the Champions League final in Wembley, and I know the Euros are in Germany next summer, so if anyone out there is writing a movie, I’ll do my best to make it happen!” Kane stated.
“It’s difficult. I don’t want to think about it too much because there’s still so much time left, but it would be fantastic if it happened.”
