Is Harry Kane the most unimpressive Golden Boot winner?
By Duncan Kwok
Harry Kane has won the Golden Boot for the 2018 FIFA World Cup held in Russia after Romelu Lukaku failed to score more than Kane’s 6 goals.
However, is he a truly deserving winner of the Golden Boot after all 3 of his 6 goals were penalties. That said, perhaps Kane was the non-open play Golden Boot winner, but the likes of Mbappe, Lukaku and Cherysev should get all the plaudits.
With Harry Kane there will always be hype, he is the English football darling, their hope for World Cup glory.
Alas Football will not be coming home on the back of Saint Harry. He will certainly play a part but on the back of this World Cup, Three Lions fans might just have to open their eyes and realize that apart from the Tunisia game, Kane hasn’t really had a great World Cup.
Yes, there will be people saying Kane scored a hat-trick against Panama but the hat-trick was against Panama, who had a leaky defense and a tendency to grab people during set-pieces, even then Kane’s hat-trick consisted of two powerful penalties and a deflection off his heel from a Ruben Loftus-Cheek shot.
His goal against Colombia was once again a penalty, if there had been no pointless grabbing and no VAR would Kane have gotten 6 goals? He might have gotten 4 goals but certainly not 6.
He scored just one goal from open play over 573 minutes and that was from the deflected shot off his heel from Loftus-Cheek.
The likes of Lukaku and Mbappe averaged a goal every 476 and 534 minutes respectively, the former being Lukaku. This showed just how deadly the Belgian is while also baring in mind Mbappe played 7 matches to Kane’s six.
Even in the third-place match between Belgium and England, Lukaku looked the more potent of the two and should probably have converted two good chances if not for a bad first touch.
One must remember that against Croatia in the World Cup semi-final he had a glorious chance that he spurned, that would’ve put England 2-0 up and ever closer to World Cup glory.
There is no point saying Kane is an undeserving Golden Boot winner, because he is. After all, he scored those penalties and converted his set-piece chances that he had.
This is a mark of a true goalscorer and that if he had the same quality service that Mbappe and Lukaku had, he would’ve scored more goals.
However, to suggest that Harry Kane has truly established himself as one of the world’s best marksmen is quite untrue, he still has a ways to go before he gets there.
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But enough of this analysis on Harry Kane and lets just simply reflect on an outstanding World Cup and perhaps in 2022 World Cup in Qatar, Football just might be coming home.