England captain Harry Kane is out with an injury that might deny him the chance to feature in the friendly games against Brazil (March 23) and Belgium (March 26). The ankle injury suffered in the Bundesliga fixture against Darmstadt will deny Three Lions fans of a Kane in absolute top form. Indeed, the 30-year-old Englishman fired home his 31st goal in his 26th Bundesliga game in the 5-2 over relegation-threatened Darmstadt.
That goal not only saw Kane continue to score at the incredible rate of every 75 minutes in the Bundesliga this season, but it also broke a 60-year-old Bundesliga record. By scoring his 31st goal, Kane became the Bundesliga player with the most goals scored in a debut season. The previous record was held by legendary German striker Uwe Seeler, who scored 30 goals in the inaugural 1963/64 Bundesliga campaign for Hamburger SV.
The goal on Saturday also increased Kane’s lead at the top of the Torjägerkanone (the goal cannon trophy handed to the top Bundesliga scorer) standings, where he is now ten goals ahead of Stuttgart’s Serhou Guirassy. "With the quality of our forward players, we can be really, really dangerous if we play like this,” Kane said after the game (quoted by Gegenpressing) when asked about breaking the Bundesliga goalscoring record set by former Bayern star Robert Lewandowski.
5x G.Müller 4x Lewandowski: Bundesliga top scorers with more than 30 goals
31 goals and counting – Could Kane break Lewandowski’s Bundesliga record?
Could Kane break Lewandowski’s goalscoring record at the end of the season? He would have to score ten more goals in the last eight games, a pace of 1.25 goals per game. That’s not unrealistic, given Kane’s current pace of 1.19 goals per game this season. But much will depend on his fitness, and whether head coach Thomas Tuchel will rotate his squad in the final eight Bundesliga games—not an unrealistic scenario should Bayern inch past Arsenal in the Champions League quarterfinals.
Should the Munich side go out against Arsenal, Kane breaking Lewandowski’s goalscoring record wouldn’t entirely make up for Bayern’s first titleless season since 2011/12. But it could provide at least one positive headline in a season in which Kane finally won his first club title and provide momentum for the 2024/25 campaign in which Bayern want to push not just to regain the Bundesliga title but also with the club hosting the Champions League final try to make a push for Europe's biggest trophy as well.
The good feelings aside, from a historical perspective, Kane breaking Lewandowski’s record would also be remarkable.Before Lewandowski’s record-breaking 2020/21 campaign, Gerd Müller’s 40 goalscoring record achieved in 1971/72 stood for almost 50 years. Now, it could be broken again within just three years.
Indeed, a glimpse at the history of the Bundesliga’s top goalscorers indicates that between 1976/77, when Dieter Müller scored 34 goals, and 2015/16 when Lewandowski managed 30, no Bundesliga player managed to score 30 goals or more. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang then managed it the following season for Dortmund (31 goals), and Lewandowski did it three more times, scoring 34 in 2019/20, 41 in 2020/21, and then 35 in 2021/22 before moving on to Barcelona. Now Kane is the latest 30+ goalscorer and still within a chance to make Bundesliga history.
