How England captain Harry Kane will have ‘physical and mental advantage’ over Premier League rivals at Euro 2024
ENGLAND fans can be confident that Harry Kane will be in the best possible shape for Euro 2024.
The Three Lions’ lacklustre last two qualifiers underlined just how much Gareth Southgate’s team will need a fit and firing Kane if they are to succeed next summer in his new home in Germany.
And the England captain is set to feel the benefits of his move to Bayern Munich in the coming months.
Bayern have seven more games before the Bundesliga takes its annual winter break and will have no competitive matches between December 20 and January 12.
Meanwhile Kane’s England team-mates in the Premier League will have to play up to four games, including one round of the FA Cup, before their own staggered two-week hiatus in January.
Former Three Lions striker Tony Woodcock, who joined FC Koln from Nottingham Forest just before the 1979/80 winter break, reckons the extra rest and breathing space will give Kane an edge for more than one reason.
Woodcock said: “Physically and mentally it is bound to be an advantage for him.
“If you’re carrying little knocks you have the chance to recover from them.
“With Harry being a family man, that extra time at Christmas will be important for him, especially as it’s his first season.
“It’s a bit of time off the treadmill.
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“It will allow him to come down a bit from the excitement of it all and to reflect on what’s happened, and then to come again in the second part of the season.”
Of course Kane and his Bayern team-mates won’t be off duty for the whole three weeks.
The club have travelled to Qatar for warm weather training in recent years and may play the odd friendly.
FC Koln did the same in Woodcock’s day, going as far afield as Colombia for money-spinning games and participating in indoor tournaments.
But Kane will also benefit from the less intense schedule of German football, which has more leeway in the calendar because there are only 18 teams in the top flight and no second domestic cup competition
Woodcock said: “One of the first things I picked up in Germany is that when you play two games in a few days, it’s called an Englische Woche – an English week!
“Except when Bayern are playing the Champions League, Harry will not have that.
“I remember in 1982 that I had a good season at Cologne and went to the World Cup feeling like I was flying.”
Ironically, being relatively out-of-sight and out-of-mind in Germany restricted Woodcock’s England opportunities at that tournament and in general.
Kane will have no such disadvantage.
In fact, Woodcock believes the change of scene and the challenges it presents will in themselves help the England captain prepare for the Euros.
Woodcock, who returned to Germany for a second spell in 1986 after four years at Arsenal, said: “ I’m a big believer in learning new things as a bit of relief away from football.
“Some people say just to concentrate on the football. But I think if you have outside interests away from it, which he has simply by living in a new country, that can be beneficial for him as well.
“It will be nice to be playing the Euros in the country where he’s living.
“Hopefully he will pick up some words of German, and feel part of the country and the culture. I don’t want to jinx him.
“But if he could also win a trophy, you would imagine him going into the tournament in the best possible state, physically and mentally.
“Think about it – he’s playing fewer games, he’s doing extremely well, he has a winter break, Bayern will look after his every need.
“He’s in a good place.”
Woodcock always thought Bayern would be the perfect move for Kane, but not even he predicted just how well it would go.
The England captain has silenced any doubters with 21 goals in 16 appearances – including three hat-tricks that have already knocked Woodcock off one of his perches.
Woodcock said: “He’s breaking records that I didn’t even know I had.
“I was the Englishman with the most hat-tricks in the Bundesliga – two – ahead of Kevin Keegan and Jadon Sancho with one each.
“At this rate he will break my record of 39 goals for an Englishman in the Bundesliga within two seasons.
“I don’t wish him any ill, but slow down a bit, mate!”