England forward Harry Kane says proving people wrong is what drives him on. Photo / Photosport
There were sniggers in the room and Harry Kane heard them. It was the assembled media's reaction to the England captain's claim that, with Cristiano Ronaldo having already struck a hat-trick in the World Cup, he was under pressure to do the same if he wanted to win the Golden Boot.
It was the evening of June 17, 2018 and Kane was speaking ahead of his country's opening game against Tunisia. England had stunk the place out at Euro 2016, had not got through to the last 16 of a World Cup since 2006 and Kane had never scored in a major tournament. And yet here he was talking about not only his own vaulting ambition, but his dream of winning the World Cup - the "big gold one", as he put it on that sticky, humid evening at the Volgograd Arena.
In this exclusive interview with Telegraph Sport to mark the end of another extraordinary year for Kane, one in which he scored 42 goals in 63 appearances for club and country, led England to within minutes of the World Cup final and in which the fans fell in love with their national side again, the striker candidly opens up as to what it all meant. And, significantly, what drives him on to achieve even more in the coming years - specifically, winning a trophy and, eventually, even that trophy.
"There are different paths for footballers," Kane says. "Some are thrown in quite early and they have huge skill and huge talent and you can see that. Me? I had to do it by going out on loan, proving myself there, and then coming back and maybe having to sit on the bench, waiting for my opportunity to prove that I was capable at this level.
"My whole career, I have had to prove people wrong and almost play with a chip on my shoulder. That motivation is just something that's been inside me, instilled in me: whether it is proving managers or friends or family or fans that I can do this. It's something that brings the best out of me."
"Prove" is a word Kane uses a lot. He wants to prove some people wrong but, conversely, also prove others right - such as England manager Gareth Southgate, who decided that Kane would be his captain, and Tottenham Hotspur manager Mauricio Pochettino, with whom the player has such a strong bond. The Argentine even texted Kane during the World Cup with the message: "Come on England!"
"I thrive on it," Kane says. "And I think that also comes down to wanting to prove people right.
"I wanted to prove Gareth right by naming me captain and I felt I did that in the tournament. Being a striker, people look to you to score goals, but being a captain, they also look to you to do even more. It's about proving myself every time I play.
"I am someone whose dreams go right to the highest level, who wants to go to the highest level, be at the highest level.
"I'd rather do that and fall short than set my ambitions lower. I will do everything to be one of the best ever. That's the mindset you need."
Kane's rise is well-documented. A Spurs academy graduate, "one of our own" as the chant goes, he went through loan spells at Leyton Orient, Millwall, Leicester and Norwich, as doubts persisted over whether he was good enough.
Now Kane is - again - top scorer in the Premier League, with his club fighting for the title and in the last 16 of the Champions League and in the semifinals of the League Cup. He has 121 goals in 170 Premier League games, 13 in 16 Champions League games and 20 in 35 England appearances. By any standards, it is a remarkable record.
I remind Kane of an article he did for The Players' Tribune website, to mark reaching 100 Premier League goals. In it, he talks about a documentary he watched about legendary American football quarterback Tom Brady. "Turns out, Tom Brady was the 199th pick in his draft class. It just blew my mind - but in a good way," Kane wrote at the time.
He remembers it well. "It is a real inspiration," he says. "Seeing how he became the best ever from people doubting him. He was 199th in the draft. 199th! It showed that in sport, anything is possible - and in life, too.
"It gave me huge self-belief and confidence that I was going to make it; I was going to prove myself on the big stage. My career has been quite similar. Hopefully now I can go on and win a few trophies and go down as one of the best strikers in the world."
Before going to Russia, Kane had given another telling press conference in which he said he believed England could win the World Cup. It was quite deliberate. He wanted to get that message out.
"I wanted to say that because I meant it," Kane explains. "There's no point going there to just get through the group stages or even to come third or fourth. There's nothing wrong in saying we want to win it; it had to be said.
"We had that belief and it was important the fans knew that. We were not just going for a 'jolly-up' or just to be part of it. We were going there to try and perform and show ourselves on the world stage. So it was important for me to set that tone - whether that was in the press conference or when we were talking about it amongst ourselves."
Or with scoring goals.
"I will always back myself. And I will always give an honest answer. That day in Volgograd, I obviously didn't know how it would go, but I knew I was capable of scoring goals. I'd had the experience in the Euros a couple of years before which was a deeply disappointing performance personally and for the team.
"So I felt like I had a real point to prove going into the World Cup. I'd been doing well for club and for country in the games leading up to it but this was the biggest stage of them all, the World Cup, and I really wanted to prove to the world that I belonged on it."
Kane scored twice against Tunisia that night, defying the swarms of flies and clouds of insect repellent sprayed on the stadium by helicopters before kickoff. The second was the vital, 91st-minute winning goal which England assistant manager Steve Holland said was the most important moment of the tournament. It lifted the pressure; transformed the mood.
"I think that goal set the tone for an enjoyable World Cup," Kane says. "The fans went mad, at home as well, and we went mad and it allowed us to perform the way we did against Panama and after that."
On a sweltering afternoon back home, England then beat Panama 6-1, the most goals they had ever scored in a World Cup game, with Kane scoring a hat-trick. Suddenly they were through to the last 16 with one game to spare.
"I remember one training session," Kane says as he recalls the build-up to the last 16 tie against Colombia. "Steve Holland and Jordan Henderson were there and we were just practising penalties and literally my left foot was slipping down into the turf because that area had been used so much."
Inevitably it did go to penalties, with Kane having scored from the spot before Yerry Mina's 93rd-minute equalising goal took it into extra time.
"No one panicked, we knew what the plan was and if it went to penalties we knew we were capable of winning it. There was no fear," Kane says. "When Hendo missed you saw that he didn't drop his head, he stood up tall and we knew we had two more chances.
"It's hard to explain what it was like afterwards, to be honest, but it was after that that we truly believed that we were going to go all the way. Why not? We'd proved to ourselves that we could get through a knockout game, that we could do it on penalties. In the changing room, it was just amazing."
A quarter-final win over Sweden was followed by the semifinal against Croatia and the cruel reality of falling short. Just.
"We were so close and that's the hardest thing to take. We were proud, but as professional footballers, we are winners. We want to win. We're there to win. It genuinely was our aim: to win the tournament.
"We were one game away, minutes away, from playing in the World Cup final which would have been the game of our lives.
"It hurts. It still hurts. It hurts right now talking about it. We want to use that, though, to turn it around in two years [at Euro 2020], in four years [at the 2022 World Cup]. But I'm not going to lie - it will stay with us for the rest of our careers. The only thing we can do, though, is to try and get back there and do it right next time."
Kane did win that Golden Boot with six goals, the first Englishman to be leading scorer at a World Cup since Gary Lineker in 1986.
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