Harry Kane: Ballon d’Or for Bayern Munich striker?

To most Bayern Munich fans under the age of 40, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge was the club CEO who regularly spoke his mind. Fans with longer memories, or a better grasp of Bavarian football history, recall Rummenigge as one of the club's all-time great players. He was also the last Bayern man to win the Ballon d'Or — in 1981. The last Bundesliga player to win was Borussia Dortmund's Matthias Sammer, in 1996.

That long drought looks set to end on Monday, with Harry Kane, born 12 years after Rummenigge's win, the favorite to pick up the trophy at a ceremony held, as a one-off, in his native London.

"It's obviously special for me that the ceremony is taking place in London. "I come from London and lived there for a long time — maybe that's a good omen," Kane told club magazine Säbener51. "The Ballon d'Or would be a massive success for me."

Lamine Yamal, the prodigious Barcelona and Spain forward who won the Euros at 16 looks to be the main competitor. At the end of the 2025-26 season, on which the award is judged, Yamal won the World Cup with Spain, as well as the La Liga title.

Kane's 73 goals for club and country last season make for a strong case, and the Bundesliga's most expensive signing of all time has already racked up 156 goals in 158 games for the serial German champions. But it's not just the numbers that tell the story, according to his club coach.

"People in England saw him as a goalscorer during his time playing there," Vincent Kompany said of Kane last season. "We've seen other qualities too, such as his footballing intelligence. We can appreciate that now — it was perhaps somewhat underestimated in England. He's like a fine wine that improves with age. I also enjoy that aspect of his game."

Kane continues to improve at 33, a point when many footballers start to regress. Though he is helped by being more reliant on guile and technique than pace, Kane's professionalism is key to staying at the top, according to his Bayern teammate Serge Gnabry.

"He always has the right attitude, always leads the way and sets the tone," Gnabry said ahead of Bayern's 2-2 draw in the Champions League against Arsenal on Wednesday. "He never strays from his path, helps the team with his performance and is a top-tier player."

Kane scored a penalty in that match and provided a sensational pass from which Alphonso Davies scored Bayern's opener, another reminder of his all-round game. "The pass was one of my best ones," Kane said after the match. "I knew Phonzy [Davies] would be able to get there with his speed. Whatever I can do to help the team, I'll do. At the moment, it seems to be with assists more than goals."

That attitude has been with Kane from the start. His first-ever coach, Dave Bricknell, from Ridgeway Rovers, an amateur club in northeast London, told DW after he joined Bayern from Spurs in 2023: "Harry's mentality is his greatest strength. He doesn't let anything worry him. If he misses a chance, he doesn't care — he will go and score from another chance."

His England coach, Thomas Tuchel, has also emphasized Kane's leadership. "He is the first one to push everyone, and that is his mindset, and he became a very, very hardworking forward on top of his finishing skills, Tuchel said in September as Kane extended his England goal-scoring record against the Czech Republic. "He is a complete package."

There are detractors who point to perceived "stat-padding," or scoring against inferior opponents in international qualifiers and in the Bundesliga, where there are fewer elite teams, and a lot less money, than in England. Though Kane's ratio of 213 goals in 320 games in the Premier League is a little off his Bundesliga stats, it bears comparison with any other player in the history of the league.

Should Kane win the award, it will be a boost in profile for the Bundesliga, which has been unable to keep pace, both commercially and on the pitch, with other top European leagues of late, particularly the Premier League and La Liga. Winning it in a league outside of England or Spain would make Kane's feat even greater. Other than Ousmane Dembele, who won it last year after Paris Saint-Germain's Champions League win, and Lionel Messi, a serial Ballon d'Or winner, the last player to take the Ballon d'Or for a season played outside England or Spain was was Kaka at AC Milan in 2007, when Italy's Serie A was considered a stronger league.

Kane's career hasn't been straightforward, though. After signing his first senior contract with Spurs in July 2010, he was sent out on various loans to lower league sides between 2011-2013 without ever making a huge impression.

For former teammate Jermain Defoe, who also coached Kane at Spurs, those experiences were formative.

"You have to show a resilience. It's not easy when you go out on loan, it can feel like you're being rejected by the club that you are at, which isn't the case," he told DW in 2023, before adding that Kane's ability was always clear.

"When he joined up with the [Tottenham] first team, you could see the potential," Defoe said. "He was always a good finisher, always hit the ball clean. … With Harry you already knew, he had that natural instinct and always felt comfortable in front of goal."

Those goals have, after a failure to win a trophy in England, led to two Bundesliga titles and a German Cup. But success with England remains elusive after a 2026 World Cup exit in the semifinals. Kane will be 35 by the time of the next Euros, in the UK and Ireland in 2028, and has a deal with Bayern until the following year. His form since joining Bayern suggests that he could get better still.