HARRY KANE is ready to go to ‘war’ with Jude Bellingham as English football’s two great exiles prepare to face off in a Champions League semi-final.
Kane’s Bayern Munich and Bellingham’s Real Madrid ended Premier League interest in Europe’s elite competition with quarter-final victories over Arsenal and Manchester City on Wednesday night.
And Kane, who left Tottenham for Bayern last summer, says he and Bellingham snubbed moves to English clubs to give themselves a better chance of competing at the sharp end of the Champions League.
Kane said: “Jude has had a fantastic season, he’s a top player, so I’m really happy for him.
“But it will be another war against his team but these are the experiences that we both went abroad to try to achieve.
“To play in these big nights in the Champions League, to play in these big semi-finals.
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“It will be one to enjoy and I’m sure there will be a lot of English fans watching both of us. We have to focus on ourselves. I’ll say hello but once we’re on the pitch, it’s business.”
Kane and Bellingham are both targeting a Champions League Final at Wembley on June 1, ahead of England’s Euros campaign in Germany.
And Kane said: “Wembley is the dream for both of us, for sure. With Wembley being our national stadium, it’s extra motivation for us
“But there are two games ahead of us before that, which are going to be really tough so we have to focus on that.”
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Kane and his Bayern team-mates, including fellow Englishman Eric Dier, watched Real’s penalty shoot-out victory over City from their Allianz Arena dressing-room after they had defeated Arsenal 1-0 to complete a 3-2 aggregate success.
The England captain said: “We watched in the locker room, having a bit of food – Real Madrid are a big club with an amazing history in the Champions League so it’s going to be a really difficult game for us.
This one will have stung Kane the most… what’s the German for schadenfreude?, says Dave Kidd
By Dave Kidd
OF all the trophies Harry Kane has missed out on, the Bundesliga will have stung the most.
This was supposed to have been a dead cert. This was nailed-on.
Bayern Munich had won 11 successive Bundesliga titles, so when the England captain signed for the great Bavarian powerhouse last summer, we all said: “Well, at least he’ll finally win something.”
Yet on Sunday evening, there were Bayer Leverkusen — known in Germany as ‘Neverkusen’ because they hadn’t previously won the league thanks to several late implosions — cavorting around, 16 points clear, unbeaten in all competitions and confirmed as champions with five games to spare.
And so the greatest trophy curse in footballing history continues.
And this one really is freakish because Leverkusen’s story is almost as extraordinary as Leicester City’s miracle title in 2015-16 — the season when Kane won his first Premier League Golden Boot and Tottenham ended up ‘third in a two-horse race’ behind Arsenal.
Kane is always the runner-up, always the nearly man, always the fall guy, too often a figure of fun for those taking pleasure in the misfortune of others.
Does anyone know the German word for schadenfreude…?
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“But that’s what the semi-finals of the Champions League are all about, playing the biggest teams.”
Kane says Bayern boss Thomas Tuchel – a Champions League winner with Chelsea in 2021 – is determined to sign off with the European Cup before he leaves Bavaria this summer after his side surrendered their Bundesliga crown to Bayer Leverkusen.
He added: “We are going to stick behind Thomas as long as he is here, until the end of the season.
“He has given all his energy to make us successful in this competition and we feel we can come together and finish his reign here on a high.
“We need that togetherness, we’ve lacked it a bit in the Bundesliga this year, we’ve had it in the Champions League, so we are going to need more of it in the semi-final.
“It feels amazing to be there. Credit to Arsenal, they put up a tough test but in the second leg we knew we had an extra five per cent, which was the crowd behind us.
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“We knew we could find a way to get through and that’s what we did.
“The first half, I thought the game was 50-50, a bit cagey, but in the second half we came out with a real intensity, we had a few chances that hit the post and we got the goal, we stuck together and we saw it through.”
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
