England captain Harry Kane is at risk of missing out on Euro 2020, after sustaining a serious hamstring tear during the festive period. It’s a major blow to Kane and England, with the Tottenham striker entering a rich vein of form in front of goal since the arrival of new Spurs boss, Jose Mourinho. One of the best surgeons in the world, Professor Fares Haddad, operated on Kane’s hamstring earlier this month. Such is the desperation for both club and country to have Kane fit and firing before May.
It’s hardly a surprise when you consider Kane is the talisman of both Spurs and England. With 136 goals in 198 appearances for Tottenham and an impressive 32 international goals in 45 appearances, Kane is integral to the projects of both Jose Mourinho and Gareth Southgate. With Kane currently sidelined, Mourinho has had to adopt a more defensive system of late. Aged just 26, Kane should also have another decade at the highest level, providing he has some good fortune with injuries along the way. Kane already has one eye on what he wants to achieve after retiring from football – playing a different kind of football.
Kane’s placekicker ambition in the NFL
Yes, that’s right, Kane doesn’t want his pipe and slippers after Premier League retirement. Instead, he wants to forge a new career in professional sport, playing as a kicker in the NFL. He admitted in a recent interview that his desire to make it in the big time of American Football was “real”. Kane says that his ambition is fueled by his “drive to be the best” in everything that he does. He has a genuine connection with NFL, having named his dogs after quarterbacks Tom Brady and Russell Wilson.
One of the main reasons behind Kane’s fascination with NFL is his newfound friendship with Patriots quarterback, Brady. Brady was part of a Patriots team this season that stunned the NFL oddsmakers. The Patriots lost their wild-card game for the NFL Playoffs against the Tennessee Titans, having been big favourites to win a record seventh Super Bowl championship. Brady, who has the most Super Bowl wins of any player, not to mention the most MVP awards, is someone Kane admires greatly, helping to give him the “self-belief”, “drive” and “hunger to make it at the highest level.
Brady and Kane: An unlikely friendship
Their new bond, forged over social media, saw Brady invite Kane to join him for last season’s Super Bowl celebrations, in which the Patriots win a sixth Super Bowl championship, this time against the Los Angeles Rams. There’s a strong chance the pair would have discussed Kane’s ambition to become a kicker in the NFL. It certainly wouldn’t be a career decision based on money. Kicker positions are some of the lowest-paid roles in an NFL team, although most still earn more than $1m per season.
But is it a realistic proposition for someone to gravitate from the EPL to the NFL at the age of say, 35 or 36? Most people would probably say yes when you consider that being a kicker is one of the least gruelling roles in an NFL team on a physical level. Kane wouldn’t be the first professional footballer to make the switch of sporting codes to American Football either. Although you do have to go back over half a century to find the most successful code-switcher of all. An Austrian striker named Toni Fritsch enjoyed a hugely successful period in front of goal for Rapid Vienna in the 1960s, helping them to three Austrian league championships prior to upping sticks and moving across the Atlantic to try his hand at the NFL.
Fritsch had never kicked an American football in his life prior to signing terms with the Dallas Cowboys. Dallas converted Fritsch into a more than adequate placekicker, having been spotted by the Cowboys’ talent scouts in Austria. He was part of a Cowboys team that would go on to reach the Super Bowl in his rookie season, before enjoying 13 more seasons in the sport, including a Pro Bowl selection in 1979. He even held the record for consecutive field goals in 13 NFL playoff games. If Kane can channel Fritsch’s success as an undrafted free agent, he could prove a valuable acquisition for any NFL franchise once he eventually hangs up his EPL boots.
