Harry Kane’s Long Road To Glory Has Reached Its End: Ballon d’Or Winner

Trophyless seasons and empty stats – those were the words always connected with Harry Kane. Finally, in 2026, those narratives no longer follow Kane; now, when you think of the English striker, you remember him as a Ballon d’Or winner.

Kane’s journey hasn’t been easy, having been released from Arsenal’s academy at a young age. Kane later joined the Tottenham Hotspur academy, where he eventually got called up to the senior team. 

However, his rise to the top would not be quick; he had several loan spells at Leyton Orient, Millwall, Norwich City and Leicester City. It took until the 2013-14 Premier League season for him to break into Spurs’ first team. A year later, he was named PFA Young Player of the Year at 21.

Kane spent nine seasons at Spurs, where he became the club’s top goalscorer. Kane scored 280 goals in 435 appearances for Spurs while breaking Wayne Rooney’s all-time goal-scoring record for England. He is on pace to break Peter Shilton’s appearance record of 125 caps.

Year after year, he led the club into the top 4 of the Premier League and competed for the league, domestic cups, and the UEFA Champions League. Despite all of that, in nine years, not a single trophy was won.

During the 2023 summer transfer window, Kane joined German club Bayern Munich for €120 million ($134 million). In 156 matches played for the club, Kane has scored 158 goals.

This past season, Kane scored 73 goals in 65 matches, won the German Bundesliga, the DFB-Pokal, the German Supercup and led England to their best FIFA World Cup finish in 60 years with third place, scoring six times at the tournament. 

Before his move to Bayern Munich, Kane understood he was not regarded as one of the top stars in world football. 

Former Spurs manager Jose Mourinho alluded to this in a conversation with Kane in the “All or Nothing” series by Amazon that covered the 2019-20 campaign for Spurs.

“The world looks to English football with an incredible respect, but they still think that the movie stars of football belong to other places — and I think we have to build also your status in that direction,” he said.

Kane replied: “That’s my aim. When you are at a club like Tottenham, of course we’ve done well, personally I’ve done well, but I want to be Ronaldo, Messi …”

All of this leading up to the Ballon d’Or ceremony in London, Kane, along with Kylian Mbappe and Lamine Yamal, were the top three choices to win the award. The award’s official website posted three separate articles before the ceremony, congratulating all three players on winning the award. This would lead to the awards being pushed back an hour.

The Ballon d’Or is voted by one journalist per country from FIFA’s top 100 ranked nations. Kane has never finished higher than 10th in the Ballon d’Or vote (2024). The criteria for the award are: individual performances, decisive and impressive character; collective performances and titles won; class and fair play.

Despite the Premier League being the best league in the world, English players have won it only five times (Sir Stanley Matthews, Sir Bobby Charlton and Kevin Keegan twice), and the last winner was Michael Owen in 2001.

LaLiga has dominated the award over the past two decades, mainly through Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. A few players have won the award once during this stretch, like Luka Modric and Karim Benzema, both of whom won the award while playing for Real Madrid. Players from Real Madrid and Barcelona have won it 12 times each. Mbappe and Yamal, who Kane was competing against for the award, both play for Madrid and Barcelona. Manchester United are the most successful English club in Ballon d’Or history with four. The last United player to win the award was Ronaldo in 2008.

Kane left England to win trophies; losing cup finals and the highest league finish of second would only build frustration at Spurs. Now at Bayern, Kane has won five trophies since the 2024-25 season. Now he can add the Ballon d’Or to that list.

“I am almost speechless,” he said. “Being here in London has made it extra special. It made it a good omen for me tonight.” Now standing on the stage, all the eyes are on him.