Harry Kane’s pursuit of true greatness depends on the World Cup - and England depend on him

The game’s greatest players have wasted no time making their mark at the 2026 World Cup. Lionel Messi has already equalled Miroslav Klose’s all-time goalscoring record with a hat-trick. Kylian Mbappé is only a couple behind after becoming France’s new leading scorer. Erling Haaland scored twice in his first ever World Cup match to further improve his preposterous international record. Now it’s Harry Kane’s turn.

Already England’s record goalscorer and inside the all-time Top 10, Kane is coming into the tournament on the back of a breathtaking domestic campaign which has made him a serious contender for the Ballon d’Or – but a deep run in North America will be a necessity if he wants to win it. It may also be a necessary for his legacy.

Harry Kane can achieve true greatness at the 2026 World Cup

Kane will be remembered as one of England’s best regardless of his performances over the summer, but he still has a little bit of work to do in order to go down as one of the true greats of an era crowded with players building lasting legacies of their own. The World Cup presents him with the opportunity to carve out a space in the history books alongside Messi, Mbappé and Cristiano Ronaldo.

A Ballon d’Or win would go a long way towards that ambition, but success in the World Cup seems to be a prerequisite now. It’s unlikely, for instance, that Luka Modrić would have won in 2018 without Croatia’s run to the final, while Messi pipped Haaland in 2023 off the back of Argentina’s successful campaign in Qatar. Should England limp out early, Kane’s best chance at the biggest individual award will likely disappear.

Fortunately for Kane, his fate is largely in his own hands. So central is he to England’s style of play that his personal success would likely beget success for his country. There is a direct correlation between Kane playing well and England winning – they have lost just four games in which he has scored.

There are also obtainable landmarks which would indelibly ink Kane’s name into the history books for years to come. Four goals would take him to 12 in the World Cup, level with Péle and up there with a small handful of players who have all guaranteed their immortality already. Five and he would equal Ferenc Puskás in the all-time list.

While Kane is less open about his pursuit of greatness than, say, Ronaldo or Mbappé, it’s fair to say that legacy is something he thinks about. He’s made a few comments which suggest a similar single-mindedness to the other greats of the day, even if they are leavened out by a layer of self-imposed English humility.

“I want to be remembered as someone who gave everything during their career,” the 32-year-old said in a January interview. “[Who] worked as hard as they could to be the best that they possibly could. The best player. The best team-mate… I never want to have any regrets when I’m finished that I could have done more. [I’m] always pushing myself to see how far I can get.”

Fortunately, being the best player he can be over the coming weeks is the single most effective path to being remembered as the best team-mate to his fellow squad members. If Kane finds his best form and scores consistently, then he will stand among the greats individually but will also drag his team up towards the stars as well.

England need Kane to succeed – and he needs them

Since the last World Cup in Qatar, England have won 79% of their matches when Kane has been involved. Without him, they have won just 33%. There’s a certain degree of overlap with semi-experimental friendly sides – the matches against Uruguay and Japan in March for example – but the statistics almost fall over themselves to insist on the idea that England simply don’t play well without a fit and firing Kane.

When Kane is unavailable, England struggle for fluency up front. When he isn’t on song – as was the case in the latter stages of Euro 2024 when exhaustion caught up with him and forced Gareth Southgate to take him off the in the final after just an hour – England lack not only their single greatest goal threat but also their primary creative force.

England need Kane at his very best in order to stand any chance of winning a first World Cup in 60 years. Kane needs that win to cement his legacy in a way that most of England’s greatest goalscorers never quite managed: None of Michael Owen, Gary Lineker or Alan Shearer are viewed as true giants of the game outside of their own country.

First thing’s first, of course: England must get out of the group stage. Kane hit a hat-trick against Panama in the 2018 World Cup, and may well fancy his chances of padding his stats a little when they face each other again at the MetLife Stadium, but first opponents Croatia are a different matter – he has a relatively poor record against them, with just one win in four matches.

Kane may be even more important against Croatia due to the possibility that the Three Lions go into the game without Bukayo Saka, who is widely expected to be on the bench as he recovers from an Achilles problem. With England’s player of the year from 2022 and 2023 sidelined, Kane will carry even more of the goalscoring load. The outcome of his battle with precocious centre-back Luka Vušković could have an outsized impact on the result on Wednesday evening.

And Kane’s performances in North America will very probably have an outsized impact on England’s chances of winning the World Cup. If he can lift them and score game after game, they are serious contenders. If he can’t find his rhythm right away, they may well be also-rans once again. If this isn’t Kane’s World Cup, it probably won’t be England’s.