With Harry Kane playing at Bayern Munich, former Mainz, Borussia Dortmund and Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp has very well-rounded familiarity with the England skipper’s evolution. There are few managers that know more about the Bundesliga, what it takes to succeed in the league, and how difficult it is to best Bayern than Klopp, who also came up against Kane via Tottenham Hotspur on several occasions during his tenure on Merseyside.
In total, Klopp has faced Kane 17 times as a manager and the German manager will certainly remember Kane’s brace at Wembley back in 2017 when the national stadium was Tottenham’s home during their new stadium’s build phase. The striker has scored nine times against Liverpool in the Premier League, and Klopp was able to witness almost all of them.
In a recent appearance on the Peter Crouch Podcast while Klopp was back in Liverpool for the Legends match vs the Dortmund legends, Klopp had high praises for Kane, who has been on another level since he’s joined Bayern from Tottenham. Before Crouch could even complete his question about what Kane’s achieved in the Bundesliga and at Bayern, Klopp explained how much he admired the England skipper.
“So he’s top, top, top level. He understands the game probably better than anybody right at this moment in time. He sees things early. His finishing was always fantastic, but now he knows exactly like — it’s like when he gets the ball, it’ like, in a good way, slow motion. Oh look (ball flight noise), and then the ball is going, it’s ridiculous. And he enjoys life, but in Munich, especially, it’s a good city for that. I think it’s a good match. It’s a really good match. And when he signed for them, and for the amount of money, I think it was like, whoa…I don’t think you’ll get a lot of that back to be honest, but he performs. He’s performing top, top level — world class player, I have to say,” Klopp enthused (via @iMiaSanMia).
Klopp and Kane are one of those dream ‘what if’ scenarios as far as top players playing under top managers, but it is hard to argue that everything hasn’t panned out exactly how it should for the striker under Vincent Kompany at Bayern. He’s on 49 goals and five assists from a total of 41 appearances across all competitions and well on his way to collecting more winner’s medals this season and he’ll certainly be in the running for a Ballon d’Or.
If you are looking for more Bayern Munich and German national team coverage, check out the latest episodes of Bavarian Podcast Works, which you can get on Acast, Spotify, Apple, or any leading podcast distributor…