On Tuesday night, Harry Kane and Bayern Munich went tor verrückt, as the internet tells us Germans might say instead of goal crazy, or possibly they went torrausch, as the robots prefer it. (If there are any actual Germans out there to correct us, or even anyone who paid attention at school, please feel free to enlighten us about which works better.)
Anyway, leaving aside our limited language skills, the fact of the matter is that Bayern Munich battered Croatian outfit Dinamo Zagreb 9-2 in the UEFA Champions League (UCL). And England skipper Kane scored four of his side’s impressive tally.
Kane famously is yet to win a major trophy, or pretty much any team trophy, during his career. He has lost in a Champions semi-final with Spurs and in consecutive European Championship finals with England. The powers of his anti-silverware aura have proved so strong that last season he even managed to end Bayern’s run of dominance in Germany. The Bavarian giants failed to win the Champions League or the German Cup and, far more shockingly, for the first time since the 2011/12 season, they did not win the Bundesliga.
That failure came despite the former Spurs striker netting 36 goals in 32 league matches for Bayern, and 44 goals in 45 games in all competitions. However, it seems unlikely, almost impossible, that Kane’s long wait for collective glory will not be ended in 2024/25. The England captain, and his team, have started the new campaign in fine form, and seem determined to reassert themselves domestically. And with the UCL final set to take place in Munich in May 2025, FC Hollywood’s new manager, surprise appointment Vincent Kompany, has talked of making it to a “home” final as “a dream that needs to live”.
Bayern Hit Zagreb for Nine
Kane opened the scoring from the penalty spot after 19 minutes, meaning his side registered their nine goals in just 71 minutes. It was “only” 3-0 at half time and the visitors threatened to give the German team a real scare when they pulled two back early in the second half. With just over half an hour remaining the score was 3-2, but then Bayern flicked the switch and went from third gear straight into overdrive.
Kane scored after 57 minutes, Michael Olise got his second of the night after 61 to wrap the game up, before England’s record goalscorer added two more penalties in the 73rd and 78th minutes. Leroy Sane got number eight with five minutes of normal time remaining before Leon Goretzka completed the humiliation in stoppage time. 9-2, and records aplenty.
| Bayern Munich | Score | Dinamo Zagreb |
|---|---|---|
| Kane (pen) 19′ | 1-0 | |
| Guerreiro 33′ | 2-0 | |
| Olise 38′ | 3-0 | |
| 3-1 | Petković 49′ | |
| 3-2 | Ogiwara 50′ | |
| Kane 57′ | 4-2 | |
| Olise 61′ | 5-2 | |
| Kane (pen) 73′ | 6-2 | |
| Kane (pen) 78′ | 7-2 | |
| Sané 85′ | 8-2 | |
| Goretzka 90’+2 | 9-2 |
A Night for the Stats Fans
Several records were created as free-scoring Bayern continued their fine start under former Burnley boss Kompany. His men have won their opening five games of the season in all competitions and have now scored 24 goals with 15 of those coming in the last two outings. Kane has notched nine times in those five games and could shatter all sorts of records if Bayern continue in this vein.
The Englishman, who also scored two goals in two games for England during the international break, now has 53 goals in total for Bayern from just 50 appearances. He is now the highest-scoring English footballer in the history of the Champions League (including in its former guise as the European Cup). His 33 goals move him clear of Wayne Rooney, who managed 30, though Kane’s came in just 45 matches, far fewer than the former Man United star.
Kane is also now the only player in the history of the UCL (again, including the European Cup) to have bagged three penalties in the same game. The individual pieces of history keep coming too, with Bayern’s star striker the only English player to bag three or more goals for a non-English team and also the first Englishman to get four in a match in the new (UCL) format of the competition.
Kane came very close to getting five in the game too, with one goal disallowed. He missed further chances too to join the elite list of just three men to have ever managed five goals in a single UCL game. However, there were more records for his team though, with Bayern becoming the first team to score nine times since the competition became the Champions League in 1992.
Real Madrid scored nine in a 9-1 win against Innsbruck in the 1990/91 season, shortly before the revamp/rebrand. With 11 goals the clash became the joint-second highest-scoring UCL game ever too.
King Kane Can
Somehow, despite his amazing feats, Kane still has his critics. Despite the blistering start he made to life in Germany last term, there were calls for him to be dropped during England’s run in the Euros. In the end, Kane walked away as the joint-leading goalscorer in the competition, to go with the Golden Boot he won at the 2018 World Cup.
He was not at his very best in Germany at Euro 2024 but neither were England. He looked better with more attacking support against Ireland and Finland, under interim boss Lee Carsley, and has clearly started the 2024/25 campaign with Bayern like a raging bull/house on fire/Erling Haaland. He is England’s record goalscorer for a reason and hopefully he has now done enough to silence the critics for a good period of time.
The critics will be back, of course, for they never go away, just wait in the wings, waiting to snipe and complain. But we predict that Kane will finally have some club-level silverware to his name by the time they are. Bayern will surely win the Bundesliga this term and they would appear to have every chance of going very far in the UCL too.
After 50 games Kane’s stats for his new club are truly staggering and certainly hold up to comparison with what Haaland has achieved. There is every chance that his numbers will get better too, with Kompany committed to attacking football, and Kane sure to adapt to German football.
Kane’s Bayern Munich Stats So Far
- 50 Games
- 53 Goals
- Averaging 1.06 Goals Per Game
- 14 Assists
- 67 Goal Involvements
- 4,321 Minutes Played
- Averaging a Goal Involvement Every 64 Minutes
- 6 Hat-Tricks