There is a question that will follow Kane until he retires: how high would he have been if he had played in the right place at the right time over the years?
Bayern Munich in 2024 is not a suitable place. The Bundesliga squad have announced that Thomas Tuchel will be sacked at the end of the season, with little hope of winning the league and a long goodbye. To Kane, the plot is familiar. Since 2021, Kane has worked with six different managers at the club.
So, while the question is poignant, we can't help but ask: how high would Kane's achievements have been if his work environment had been a little more stable and a little more consistent?
For some reason, Kane has always played well in a not-so-good environment, in a team with problems. The last time he played for a team without any turmoil was probably back in 2018. After that, he always encountered various problems in his work - coaches bombarded the club, the club picked and searched, the recruitment was not effective, and so on. His firepower output has always been stable, and the environment around him has been very unstable.
However, when a player is always in a chaotic environment, it is easy to wonder if the chaos itself is related to him.
Kane has been unlucky, debuting for many years and going through two very awkward periods at two famous clubs. But at the same time, he's also inadvertently contributing to the problem – and of course, it's not his own fault.
It all started at Tottenham, where his career can be broadly divided into two periods. In Pochettino's first three years in charge, Tottenham built a team that suited him. Over the next five seasons, he became the heart of a failing team due to the club's failure to invest and rebuild.
From season to season, Kane has faced problems such as an imbalance in midfield, poor wing-backs, an ageing defence and a lack of wingmen up front. However, Kane's ability to go from strength to strength over the years seems to have been used by the club as a reason not to strengthen the squad. It seems that as long as he is there, all kinds of loopholes can be filled, and the goal will not be broken anyway, which makes the need for spending money on reinforcements seem less urgent.
The reality may be more subtle, but it's not hard to see that Kane's goalscoring and organisational skills have made Tottenham deservedly weaker.
A similar scenario is playing out at Bayern. Kane came to Bayern last summer and laid a hidden danger in the background. In order to pursue Kane, Bayern sacrificed the need for reinforcement in positions such as midfield.
On the night of Kane's debut, RB Leipzig came full fire in the German Super Cup, easily penetrating Bayern's defence, leaving fans in shock. However, when Kane, who is worth 100 million euros, warmed up on the sidelines, a lot of what happened on the pitch seemed to have nothing to do with him.
When Kane came on in the second half, the crowd erupted in cheers. The most expensive player in the history of German football deserves such treatment, and fans feel that any problems that have been exposed before will become irrelevant. Our Bayern have unlocked the achievement of 11 consecutive Bundesliga titles.
In the 2022-23 season, Bayern set the record for the lowest number of points since 2011, but still managed to win the Bundesliga title.
But curiously, just like at Tottenham, Kane's ability seems to convince Bayern's policymakers that the problem is not serious. They don't see the need to bring in Fulham defender Palhinha, at least not in the summer window. They thought it would be enough to wait until the winter window to tinker with it.
Tomorrow, Bayern will play RB Leipzig again at home. RB Leipzig haven't been in great form since the start of the year, but I'm sure no one will be surprised if they find a break in midfield again and clean up Bayern on counter-attacks.
There has been a change since the start of the season and there is now some criticism of Kane.
He has been obscure in a couple of games, with the most recent being a 3-0 defeat at Bayer Leverkusen two weeks ago. But his firepower is as steady as ever, and the Bundesliga's single-season goal record is expected to be broken.
However, arguments began to arise in Germany about his easy "jail time".
Kane himself is very versatile. At Tottenham, as the strength of the midfield declined, Kane quickly adjusted his style of play, more and more of a retreat to the organization, mastering the skills of long passing, but this is also forced by the team.
At Bayern, the same thing is happening. Alphonso Davies was injured and became lifeless on the left. Tuchel has a conflict with Kimmich and the midfield is leaky. Koeman is out for the season, and Gnabry was in much worse form before his injury.
Kane got to fill in the holes again, and it didn't fill it well. Over the past month, his role on the pitch has become less and he lacks a tacit understanding with some of his new team-mates. But he's wandering around the pitch, trying to make a difference, the team is in tatters, he's got to patch it up.
Yes, Kane always played for imperfect teams and often played with different coaches, mainly due to poor management at the club. However, there is another reason – he has the ability to do so, because he is one of the few plug-and-play centre-forwards in contemporary football, and with him, you don't have to think too much about building a team or anything. He's especially suited to a team in this kind of chaos.
Of course, Kane can't help himself. Before joining Bayern, he already knew the situation in the Bayern dressing room and how many senior big-name stars there were. He also knows that no matter how long and painful Tottenham's rebuilding may be, Bayern's side also faces a rebuilding project.
In today's football, there are only a few clubs where top superstars can go to, there are so many factors that restrict transfers, it's impossible to do everything, you have to compromise on some aspects. Kane joined Bayern because Bayern was the only option at the time.
There used to be an old saying that a really good player can "choose any club in the world". Nowadays, this "any" is two or three at best, and the players have to make compromises. In that sense, Kane is not alone.
His talent allows him to survive the chaos, and his talent even pushes him to survive the chaos. There is no real perfect ending on the football pitch, which is normal and unfortunate for a star like him.