We’ve all had a good laugh at Harry Kane’s expense in the last couple of days.
The Spurs forward is so adamant that Christian Eriksen’s second goal against Stoke at the weekend actually belongs to him, the club have lodged an appeal to the Premier League to get the strike added to Kane’s tally.
The 24-year-old tweeted fellow poachers Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer, encouraging them to credit him with the goal on Match of the Day.
Since Saturday, he’s been relentlessly campaigning, even going as far as to swear on his daughter’s life that he tickled the ball over the line.
Inevitably, the vultures swooped, with fans taking to social media to mock Kane’s desperation…
Admittedly, we couldn’t help ourselves either.
But all jokes aside, people don’t genuinely want Kane to change his ways, do they?
He’s a centre-forward who measures life in goals, of course he’s going beg, borrow and steal if it means adding to his tally.
Every single other great goalscorer in the world right now, and throughout history, would be acting the exact same way.
Shearer, Lineker and Frank Lampard have all admitted they would also be claiming it in a similarly unwavering manner.
And it’s not just this season’s Golden Boot that he’s thinking about, it’s immortality he’s concerned with.
To a world-class goalscorer, numbers are everything.
Robert Lewandowski, Luis Suarez, Cristiano Ronaldo; all goal addicts with no chance of recovery.
Their legacies are measured by their goal-to-game ratio, Golden Boots, hat-tricks, etc.
And so their hunger for goals actually drives their performances and is probably the reason some players seem blessed with predatory instincts in the box.
Midfielders, such as Eriksen, can rely on intangible measures to define them.
Fans, pundits and fellow professionals take their style and general influence on a team’s approach into consideration when assessing their true worth.
And while that may be true of strikers as well (everyone recognises Dennis Bergkamp’s extracurricular activities) it’s to a much lesser extent.
Goals are a striker’s currency.
Uncompromising greed and selfishness is what separates the good goalscorers from the greats.
Kane swearing on his daughter’s life that Eriksen’s free-kick brushed his shoulder may have made him a laughing stock for a few days.
But the same hunger has set him on his way to becoming a legend.
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