Harry Kane and the Ballon d'Or: How Relentless Consistency Looks Set to Win Football's Biggest Individual Prize Analyst
Harry Kane might not be the most glamourous winner of the Ballon d'Or, but victory would prove reliability and consistency go a long way in top-level football. Scoring 73 goals in a single season wouldn't be a bad effort for a team, but for one individual to score that many on their own is an astounding feat.
That was what Harry Kane managed to do last season, scoring 61 times at club level for Bayern Munich and adding a further 12 at international level for England. Those 73 goals came in just 65 appearances, too.
Kane is widely expected to win the 2026 Men's Ballon d'Or on Monday; if he does, he will become the first English player to win it since Michael Owen back in 2001. It's apt that he'd be collecting the award in the city where he's plundered most of his goals: London.
But it's an accolade that's only really been made attainable because of Kane's brave decision to move to Munich. After 19 years at Tottenham Hotspur, a journey that started with him as an 11-year-old in their youth system and finished with him becoming club captain and all-time top goalscorer, Kane somewhat unexpectedly made the move to Germany in August 2023, joining Bayern Munich.
The surprise came mainly because he was only 47 goals off Alan Shearer's all-time Premier League goal record, and with age on his side. Kane's decision to leave was largely motivated by a desire to trade individual milestones for team success after years without major club silverware.
The then-30-year-old wanted to win silverware, and Bayern presented the perfect place to do just that. The irony now, however, is that by making that move, he's on the cusp of winning arguably the biggest personal accolade a footballer can collect.
Kane's journey to becoming a likely Ballon d'Or winner has been one of reliability and consistency rather than peaks and troughs. Despite that, his incredible goal return at Bayern has elevated him to another level since leaving his boyhood club and placed him among the all-time great goalscorers the game has seen.
A Season to Remember Kane scored 61 goals in all competitions in the 2025-26 season - the period for which this year's Ballon d'Or is judged - 19 more than any other player in Europe's top five leagues. It was the most by a player in a season at a club in the top five European leagues since Cristiano Ronaldo scored 61 for Real Madrid in 2014-15.
Even if you took away his 17 penalty goals from that tally, his remaining tally of 44 would still be more than the next-highest scorer, Kylian Mbappé (42 - of which 12 were penalties). He scored 36 league goals, the same tally as he clocked up in his first season at Bayern in 2023-24, and secured a third successive Bundesliga Golden Boot.