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Harry Kane has said that his penalty heartbreak against France at the last World Cup has changed him as a player and given him extra motivation to lead England to glory at the tournament next summer.
The captain missed from the spot in the 84th minute of the quarter‑final in Qatar in 2022 as England slipped to a 2-1 defeat – a moment Kane describes as the lowest of his career, worse than losing any club final. The Bayern Munich striker lost three of them with his previous club, Tottenham, including the Champions League final in 2019.
Kane’s response to the failure against France was to work at introducing greater variation to his penalty-taking technique, principally a stutter run where he waits for the goalkeeper to move before striking the ball. The results have been spectacular.
Kane went on a run of 31 successful conversions for club and country after France, the sequence broken at the start of this season when he missed for Bayern in the German Cup against Wehen Wiesbaden. Since then, he has scored six in a row, the latest coming in England’s 5-0 win against Latvia in Riga on Tuesday. The result secured qualification for the World Cup finals, which will be hosted by the US, Canada and Mexico.
“I always try to learn from those moments,” Kane said. “After that penalty, I went 31 without missing. I changed my technique a little bit. I improved in that sense, which I was proud of. In terms of that being my last memory of a World Cup … yeah, I’m looking forward to the next World Cup to try to put that right, to try to go further, to try to lift the trophy as we all dream of doing. Those moments only shape you as a person, as a player and it’s definitely helped me to become a better player.”
It was striking to hear Kane open up about the miss against France. “I’d say that was probably the worst that I felt in any moment,” he said. “Obviously I’ve lost finals before. To have that responsibility, you almost feel like it fell on my shoulders and I guess not being able to execute something that I’ve been able to execute many a time in my career … I think that was the hardest part to process and take.
“Always as a sportsman, putting yourself in that situation … there’s going to be moments where it doesn’t quite go your way. But [it’s] the way I learned from that … the way that motivated me to get even better and improve – not just from the penalty side in terms of improving my technique but as an all-round player. To know I want to be back there at the World Cup, to help England get back there.”
Kane scored twice in the victory against Latvia to move to 76 England goals. If Wayne Rooney’s previous record for the nation of 53 is fast becoming a speck in the rearview mirror, the prospect of Kane reaching an astonishing century feels increasingly feasible.
“I think it’s there,” the 32‑year‑old captain said. “The way I’m feeling right now, I’m not slowing down any time soon. I want to stay at this level for as long as I can. I’m on 76 now so that leaves 24 and we have a few more games between now and the World Cup … and then try to edge closer to that 100.”
Kane has scored 18 goals for Bayern this season plus three for England. He feels he is in the form of his life. “I think so. The goals are there and the numbers speak for themselves. The way I feel on the pitch, the way I am seeing the game, physically and without the ball, pressing … I feel in a really good place. I feel like I have stepped up another level this season.”
The England head coach, Thomas Tuchel, who signed Kane at Bayern in the summer of 2023, paid tribute to his professionalism. “For me, he never misses a penalty,” Tuchel said.
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“He was not happy [when he missed against Wiesbaden] but I was kind of … not happy but relieved that his incredible series broke – and not for me.
“I thought: ‘OK, this is a good moment for me to build a new series.’ Because otherwise I would have been maybe overcautious … don’t let the series break in the middle of a World Cup game.
“We have this out of the way so we start a new two‑year run now without a miss. But he’s in top shape. He puts so much effort in these penalty takings. I’ve never seen that before – how he trains it, the effort that he makes.”
