Harry Kane’s brace against Lazio on Tuesday took Bayern Munich through to the quarter-finals of the Champions League and keeps the 30-year-old’s dream of winning silverware in his first season in Germany alive.
It also means that the ex-Tottenham Hotspur forward has scored 51 goals in European club competition — becoming the first Englishman to reach the half-century mark.
Kane’s goals have been scored for two clubs across three competitions, with his first strike coming as an 18-year-old in December 2011 against Shamrock Rovers for Harry Redknapp’s Spurs.
Which clubs has he scored against the most in Europe? How many of his goals have come from outside the box? Which player has assisted him the most?
Did he reach the 50-goal milestone in fewer matches than Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo?
The Athletic answers all this and more.
Below is the breakdown of Kane’s goals by competition. His maiden Europa League goal was the aforementioned strike in Tallaght, South Dublin, in 2011, the first time he netted in the Champions League was against Monaco in November 2016 and his first Europa Conference League goal came against Pacos de Ferreira in a qualifying game in August 2021.
He has scored 45 goals for Tottenham in European competition and six for Bayern Munich.
Kane has scored the majority of his European goals in the group stage — and has never scored after the last 16 in any competition. It should be noted, though, that he has only played two games past that stage (the Champions League quarter-final first leg against Manchester City in 2018-19 and the final against Liverpool later that season).
The England captain will now have the chance to change this with Bayern in the draw for the last eight of this season’s Champions League.
The six last-16 goals he has scored are: Juventus (away) in the Champions League in 2017-18, Borussia Dortmund (away) in the Champions League in 2018-19, two against Dinamo Zagreb (home) in the Europa League in 2020-21 and the double in Munich against Lazio on Tuesday.
Kane has scored against 27 clubs in European competition — with Slovenian side NS Mura, Borussia Dortmund and Greek team Asteras Tripolis the opponents he has found the net against the most often.
Perhaps surprisingly, it is not Son Heung-min who has provided the most assists for Kane in Europe — that achievement is shared by Lucas Moura and Christian Eriksen.
And, ironically, Kane scored his first European goal for Bayern Munich after Manchester United’s Eriksen gave away a penalty when the two teams played in Germany last September.
Kane has scored four hat-tricks in Europe — one in the Champions League, two in the Europa League and one in the Europa Conference League.
His hat-trick against Asteras Tripolis in 2014 was his first for Tottenham in any competition and the fifth of an impressive eight trebles scored by Spurs’ players in Europe in the 2010s (the other seven were scored by Peter Crouch, Gareth Bale, Jermain Defoe, Roberto Soldado, Erik Lamela, Kane again and Moura).
Kane’s hat-trick against NS Mura in the Europa Conference League made him just the third man to score a treble in three different major European competitions — after German duo Jupp Heynckes and Gerd Muller, who are both heavily associated with Kane’s current club Bayern Munich.
Kane leads the way among English scorers in European competition — and now has 11 more than fellow forward Wayne Rooney, the man whose national team goalscoring record he broke last year.
Few would back against the former Tottenham player pulling increasingly further clear of the below names over the coming years.
The Bayern No 9’s goals against Lazio made him just the third Englishman to score in the Champions League knockout stage for a non-British club — after Steve McManaman for Real Madrid in 2000 and 2002 and Jude Bellingham for Borussia Dortmund in 2021.
Kane has taken 84 games to reach the 50-goal landmark — 12 matches fewer than Cristiano Ronaldo took. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Lionel Messi got there much quicker: just 67 games.
In total, Ronaldo has scored 145 goals in European competition and Messi has scored 132.
Erling Haaland, meanwhile, has scored 45 goals in 44 European games…
Kane has scored more goals with his head in Europe than he has with his left foot, but a clear majority (61 per cent) have been with his right foot.
Breaking a match down into 15-minute segments, the period where Kane has found the net the most often in Europe is the 76th-90th minute (including added time). He has scored 13 goals in this period — more than in the first 30 minutes of games.
Tottenham fans will fondly remember his late brace (78, 89 minutes) at home against PSV Eindhoven in the Champions League groups in 2018-19, which proved crucial in Mauricio Pochettino’s side advancing to the knockout stage.
Kane has scored 92 per cent of his goals from inside the box, with seven of those 47 goals coming from the penalty spot.
Kane will be hoping to add to his tally this season, with Bayern’s only realistic chance of silverware in 2023-24 being the Champions League. The last season in which the Bavarians failed to win a trophy was 2011-12 — the campaign in which Kane scored for the first time in Europe.
If Bayern are to avoid the same fate again, then their English talisman will have to keep doing what he does best: scoring goals.
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