New Delhi: England’s talismanic striker and captain Harry Kane has overtaken Gary Lineker to become the all-time top scorer for the Three Lions at the World Cup with 11 goals. With this, he scored the 70th goal of the season for both club and country, surpassing Portuguese legend Cristiano Ronaldo.
The Bayern Munich striker has also taken nine games less to surpass Ronaldo’s record—69 goals in 69 matches. Also, he now has more World Cup goals than Ronaldo, whose tally stands at 10. His record-breaking goal came against Panama in the 67th minute of the game on Matchday 3 of the FIFA World Cup.
Quick movement allowed Kane to drift past the defender to head in English midfielder Jude Bellingham’s teasing ball from the left edge of the box. Kane’s 82nd goal for the Three Lions puts him almost 30 ahead of the next highest all-time goalscorer for the England national team — Wayne Rooney. Rooney’s 53 goals came in 120 games for the national team, three more than Kane has played for the Three Lions so far.
While Kane’s goalscoring prowess has never been in doubt for the better part of the last decade, his game has developed considerably, especially since he moved to German champions Bayern Munich.
An overhaul in gameplay for Harry Kane
His three seasons in Germany have seen the English captain score 98 goals in 94 games in the Bundesliga. However, he has also provided 23 assists in the German league. Kane is not just an out-and-out striker anymore, working as a poacher. His ability to fall deep, roam across the pitch and contribute in the build-up play has made him one of the better outfield players across Europe.
A look at the 2024-2025 season shows Kane scoring 41 goals across all competitions for Die Roten, while also finishing third in a number of assists with 14. In his first season at the club, Kane provided 12 assists – the third highest, while also scoring 44 goals across tournaments that year.
The English captain’s evolution began in his final two years at Tottenham Hotspur. An analysis of his pitch heatmap by ESPN indicates that in those two seasons for Spurs, Kane had shown a keen willingness to drop deep when required, with a lot of movement around the centre-half and half spaces near the full-backs away from goal.
While his first two seasons at Bayern saw Kane develop into one of the highest scoring league finishers in Europe, the last season saw the English captain move across the pitch, with a willingness to drop deep in his own half when required.
In the 2025-2026 season, Kane made roughly 14.6 touches in his own half across 90 minutes, which is far higher than any other season at Bayern, and close to his average touches for Spurs. The forward also made roughly 4.93 progressive passes per game in 2025-2026, showcasing the different spaces Kane has begun to occupy on the pitch.
Even against Panama, in the first half, one would often find Marcus Rashford and Bukayo Saka operating ahead of Kane, as the English captain ran in late and moved around the pitch in a much deeper role until his goal.
His willingness to roam across the pitch was identified as early as 2022, when The Athletic analysed his player role. In the 2017-18 season, Kane had a 91 per cent probability of being labelled as a clinical finisher, as he lit up the Premier League with his goal-scoring prowess.
That season, Kane scored 30 goals for the Lillywhites, while providing three assists during the Premier League season. While his next two seasons saw a number of goals scored, his assists hardly improved.
However, something changed in the 2020-2021 season. That year, Kane scored 23 goals in the Premier League, while also providing 14 assists for Spurs. In that year, The Athletic’s analysis points out that the probability of Kane being classified as a “Roamer” increased to 75 per cent. A roamer is a player who drops deep or wide to create opportunities for their teammates to score.
In the 2021-2022 season, Kane, along with Antonio Conte in the dugout, saw his ability to dictate the game continue, with nine assists across the year. His partnership with South Korean star winger Son Heung-min was one of the best in the Premier League.
The 2020-2021 season saw the Kane-Son combination set up a new Premier League record for goal combinations, linking up as both the scorer and assist provider – beating a record previously set by Alan Shearer and Chris Sutton in 1994-1995 for Blackburn Rovers.
Harry Kane in England
The 2026 FIFA World Cup sees Kane coming into the tournament off the back of a big season in the Bundesliga, ably supported by one of the most creative outfields for England in recent years, with Saka and Jude Bellingham, along with other stars such as Marcus Rashford and Noni Madueke, both coming off with league-winning seasons with their respective clubs.
Kane scored three goals during the group stage of the World Cup. He netted a brace in an opening 4-2 win against Croatia and scored a powerful header in a 2-0 victory over Panama.
England topped the group with seven points, registering two wins and a draw. They are all set to face World Cup debutants DR Congo in the Round of 32.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)