Leeds United

Leeds United nearly signed England hero Kane

Harry Kane was England’s hero last night, his injury-time winner against Tunisia raising multitudinous cheers as he saw England safely through their opening group game at the World Cup.

Kane is England’s #1 striker, a 24-year-old at the height of his game and only likely to climb higher in the next few years. He’s a scorer of 15 goals in 25 England appearances since making his début in 2015 and scoring with a header in a 4-0 drubbing of Lithuania in front of nearly 84,000 fans at Wembley.

Last season he was a definite goal threat for his Tottenham Hotspur side, hitting 30 Premier League goals including successive hat-tricks against Burnley and Southampton. He also scored seven-in-seven in the Champions League including a further hat-trick in the 3-0 beating of APOEL Nicosia.

He has an astonishing 140 goals in 213 games for Spurs and is easily one of the best strikers in the world. But it could have all been so different for the London-born star had he signed for Leeds United, something that very nearly happened in 2014 according to former Spurs scout David Magrone in the Daily Star.

Magrone said of the interest from Leeds, “There was serious consideration among the hierarchy at the club to letting him go to Leeds because he’d been out on loan and had never really set the world on fire.” He’s just finished another spell out on loan at then Championship side Leicester City, playing 15 games for the Foxes and scoring two goals.

Before that loan spell and drop to the second tier of English football, Kane had taken in temporary stays at London sides Millwall (27 games/nine goals/five assists) and Leyton Orient (18 games/five goals). With his football career seemingly progressing loan deal after loan deal, Spurs thought it best to cash in their chips on Kane.

However, with Leeds making the moves to sign him, then manager Tim Sherwood convinced the powers that be that Kane was able to make the transformation into a Premier League star. Speaking on this, Magrone said: “It was really only Harry’s desire to dig and prove himself at the top-level and Tim’s belief in him that stopped him going (when the offer came in).

It was this desire and belief that profited Tottenham and Kane well, his career taking off to stratospheric levels. Meanwhile, Leeds United fans will have been left wondering about ‘what ifs’ and ‘maybes’.

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