England has seen some phenomenal goalscorers in the past. Michael Owen, Jimmy Greaves, Gary Lineker, Wayne Rooney, Alan Shearer... the list goes on. They're some of the biggest names in history.
Shearer scored a ridiculous 260 goals in the Premier League - 52 more than any player in the competition's history.
Rooney bagged 53 goals for England - four more than legendary World Cup winner Bobby Charlton.
There's a good reason those two are viewed as some of England's finest-ever players, and yet Tottenham Hotspur's Harry Kane is on track to overtake both and set the new bar against which English strikers will be compared.
Now, before we go on, it's important to mention the elephant in the room. A large part of the criteria we at 90min used to define 'world class' was the ability to lead a team to trophies. After all, it's very rare to see a player go down as an all-time great if they end their career with an empty trophy cabinet.
Kane is an exception to the rule. He may not have the biggest haul of team trophies, but when it comes to individual records, there are few who can even hold a candle to the Spurs superstar.
Let's just run through some of his numbers. Kane has played six full seasons of Premier League football and never managed fewer than 17 goals. He's hit the 20-mark in four of those years and even stretched up to 30 in 2017/18.
"I think you can take Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar a little bit out of it. They're incredible, they're freaks. But of what you would call the traditional centre forwards, the number-nines, Cavani, Lewandowski, Shearer... I'm really comfortable putting him in that company. And they're outstanding centre forwards.
"He's a dream. He's gold. This is a lad who is never going to have a bad run because although he'll not score goals [all the time] he'll always contribute to the team. He'll be a target man, he'll bring people into play."
It's not only at club level where Kane has succeeded. For England, he's already sixth in the all-time scoring charts, and he projects to overtake Rooney by the time he turns 29. It's not unreasonable to suggest that he will still be at the peak of his powers for years to come at that point.
"In terms of what is possible, the goalscoring record is the really interesting one because his strike rate for us is phenomenal and he has time on his side to chase Wayne Rooney's record which would be a remarkable feat," England boss Gareth Southgate said (via Goal). "I know from his perspective, while the personal achievement is something he is driven towards, it is the team achievement."
Few have ever made goalscoring look as easy as Kane, whose effortless eye for goal has combined with his phenomenal mentality to create a glittering career which is nowhere near its end. In fact, it's only just getting started.
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Source : 90min