You know Harry Kane, right? Undoubtedly one of the finest pure strikers around these days? Yeah, that guy. Well, apparently Dutch midfielder Rafael van der Vaart wasn't convinced by Kane during his time with Tottenham Hotspur.
Kane endured a slightly slow start to his senior career, spending several years out on loan before blossoming into a star as a 21-year-old during the 2014/15 season. He has gone from strength to strength ever since, racking up 181 goals in 278 games for the Lilywhites.
However, if you'd have asked Van der Vaart, who played alongside Kane between 2010 and 2012, whether the Englishman would ever amount to anything, you would have been met with a resounding 'no'.
He told Championat: “I remember his first training session. Kane was then 18 or 19 years old. Every second touch - with his head.
"I went to our goalkeeper [Heurelho] Gomes and said: 'what a s**t this guy is'. Now look, Kane is the best striker in the world. This story only shows that I do not understand anything in football."
Van der Vaart was already long gone by the time Kane started to prove himself at White Hart Lane. The Dutchman left for Hamburg in 2012, but never managed to recapture his best form as his playing career slowly petered out.
He's now a professional darts player, so at least he's got that going for him.
Given Van der Vaart's poor opinion of Kane back then, it should come as no surprise that he omitted the Englishman from his list of greatest teammates at Spurs. He rattled off Robbie Keane, Peter Crouch, Jermain Defoe and even Roman Pavlyuchenko (for some reason), but eventually settled on Crouchy as the best.
"For me personally, Crouch was the best, because he was taller than everyone and we could always play off him," he said. "In addition, I scored my first six goals at White Hart Lane after his assists with his head."
Also in the interview, Van der Vaart claimed Harry Maguire is pretty rubbish, bashed Benoît Assou-Ekotto for being greedy and spoke about how much he doesn't like Zlatan Ibrahimović. You know, the standard stuff.
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Source : 90min