Reined-in Kane can thrive despite weird Euro 2024 for the alpha dogs in attack

Last week, after Portugal were eliminated by France, I wrote something about Cristiano Ronaldo which ended up getting a fair bit of pushback from his many charmingly devoted followers around the world. It actually took a few days for the abuse to materialise, along with the usual unsolicited direct messages and the Instagram follower requests. Presumably this is because it’s quite hard to type with your weaker hand. But the principal gist of the criticism went thus: hey, corrupt English media, CR7 is by no means the only big-name striker having an absolute stinker at Euro 2024. Why don’t you write about Kylian Mbappé? Why don’t you write about Harry Kane?

Well – for one thing – these situations are not all alike. Mbappé is demonstrably one of the world’s great forwards, assisted a goal against Spain on Tuesday night, and played most of his tournament with a grisly facial injury. Kane is the joint-top scorer and will probably win the Golden Boot if he scores in Sunday’s final. And yet, in their obliquely condescending way, the Ronaldo bot squadron had half a point. The alpha dogs have had a weird month. Robert Lewandowski barely left a footprint. Romelu Lukaku, the top scorer in qualifying, went four games without a goal. The hotly tipped Benjamin Sesko and Rasmus Højlund, both coming off a strong vein of club form, also blanked.

Related: Once upon a time in the west country: the origin story of Ollie Watkins

This is not a well-worn narrative about the decline of the traditional No 9, one of those quasi-moral panics that seems to crop up every other tournament year (on permanent rotation with: “Are we seeing the return of the traditional No 9?”) Because on the other side of the ledger, the likes of Niclas Füllkrug, Álvaro Morata, Breel Embolo, Wout Weghorst and Michael Gregoritsch have been among the most impactful players here. In short, something more subtle appears to be happening. And by decrypting it, we may just uncover one of the keys to Sunday’s final.

The first place to start is with the Golden Boot standings, where six players currently lead on three goals. Of those, Spain’s Dani Olmo and Germany’s Jamal Musiala are attacking midfielders. Slovakia’s Ivan Schranz is a wide forward. Cody Gakpo of the Netherlands and Georges Mikautadze of Georgia are more withdrawn forwards who like to drive at goal from deeper areas. Not a talisman or traditional target man among them. The sixth is Kane. We’ll come back to him later.

But this in itself feels like a tonal shift, away from recent tournaments that have been dominated by a certain kind of forward. Two years ago at the World Cup, Mbappé claimed the Golden Boot ahead of Lionel Messi, with Julián Álvarez and Olivier Giroud behind them. Three years ago, Ronaldo and Patrick Schick of the Czech Republic were the top scorers at Euro 2020, ahead of a battery of traditional centre-forwards: Lukaku, Kane, Karim Benzema. Kane claimed the World Cup Golden Boot in 2018, ahead of Lukaku, Ronaldo and Mbappé.

It’s not a definitive picture by any stretch, but Euro 2024 appears to have rewarded a different kind of attacking profile, one prioritising variety over reliability. By and large the teams that have tried to build their attack around a single dominant source of goals (France, Portugal, Denmark, Poland, Belgium) have struggled. Meanwhile those with more varied points of attack (Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, Turkey, Austria) have impressed. Spain’s 13 goals have been shared out among nine different players. Across the tournament as a whole, Euro 2024 will fall significantly short of Euro 2020 in terms of total goals (114 v 142) while boasting more separate scorers (83 v 80, with one game to play).

What does this tell us about how teams have been scoring, and – just as importantly – how they haven’t? In a cagier, more even tournament, even the most prolific No 9s have simply not been able to dominate in the way they have in previous editions. Those who have succeeded have done so in a more limited way. Füllkrug, Weghorst and Gregoritsch have excelled as impact substitutes. Embolo and Morata have both taken on largely sacrificial roles, running the channels, occupying defenders, creating space for others. Three Swiss players have had more shots per 90 minutes than Embolo. Eight Spanish players have had more shots per 90 minutes than Morata.

The corollary to this is that strikers who do not offer an extra dimension, whether through selfless running or assiduous defensive work or link play, have been more visibly exposed than ever before. Nobody was worried about Ronaldo’s ego in 2016 when he was inspiring them to the title. Nobody cared too much about Mbappé’s ego when he was scoring a hat-trick in the World Cup final. But when times get tough, forwards who have other tools in their belt can still make a full contribution. The pure goalscorer, on the other hand, has nothing to offer but goals.

Which brings us, in a pleasingly circuitous way, to Kane. Anyone remember the first half of England’s first group game against Serbia? Kane registered just two touches in those first 45 minutes, and yet in hindsight it was probably England’s best half of football all tournament. “I stayed a little bit higher because they like to defend man-to-man,” he said afterwards. “I wanted to keep them deep so Jude [Bellingham] and Phil [Foden] could play in the pockets. Today was more about holding the ball up, winning fouls and trying to see the game out like we did.”

This was classic selfless Kane: team first, ego second, doing a limited job superbly. It was also the last time we saw it. For whatever reason – tactical plan, game state, instinct, pride – Kane has begun to drop deeper more often as the tournament has progressed. In turn, this has restricted the space available for Foden and Bellingham. Meanwhile England’s success in the tournament – and their growing reliance on Ollie Watkins and Ivan Toney – has rested largely on shedding the idea that Kane will come and save them.

Gareth Southgate has now substituted Kane in all three knockout games. “We’ve got so many options with the ball, we didn’t need everyone to be fully involved in the game,” Southgate said after the win over Serbia, and these words are increasingly being borne out by his actions. It is England’s great fortune to be blessed with a variety of attacking threats: the multi-storey excellence of Kane, the straight-line chaos of Ivan Toney, the elastic pace and movement of Ollie Watkins, the genius of Bellingham, the invention of Foden and Bukayo Saka.

And perhaps Southgate has learned from the cautionary tale of Bayern Munich this season, who essentially remoulded their entire system around Kane, and were rewarded with sensational individual returns and no trophies. Of course Kane still has a role to play, whether as scorer or creator, starter or finisher. Those three goals, scored from a total distance of about 20 yards, have been crucial. But the story of this tournament suggests that England as a whole benefit when Kane swallows his pride and takes on a more restricted, delimited role.

An England victory on Sunday would, among many other things, elevate Kane into the pantheon of modern strikers. It would represent a culmination, a vindication, the end of a long and often painful process. And of course there is a rich irony here. Only by accepting his own limitations can Kane breach the final frontier. Only by confronting his own mortality can he become truly immortal.