Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane hailed Harry Kane ’s development into “the complete player” ahead of Tottenham Hotspur’s game at the Santiago Bernabeu tomorrow night, and admitted that even he had been surprised by Kane’s rapid rise.
Kane arrives in Madrid with a growing reputation as the best number 9 in European football after two consecutive Premier League golden boot seasons and a brilliant start to this year as well.
His face was on the front page of Madrid football newspaper Marca this morning with a headline “Harry el Fuerte” (Harry the strong), amid growing whispers that Real Madrid may eventually try to prize him away from Tottenham, just as they did first with Luka Modric in 2012 and then with Gareth Bale in 2013. Real paid £89million to sign Bale and Kane would cost far more than that. Spurs have repeatedly said he is not for sale and he is under contract until 2022.
Zidane would not be drawn on whether the Englishman could end up playing for him here, saying when asked that he “does not know what is going to happen in the future”, speaking at his press conference at Real Madrid’s Valdebebas base this afternoon.
But Zidane, who does not always go into detail when discussing rival players, then gave a glowing endorsement of Kane as a striker and the remarkable progress he has made under Mauricio Pochettino in the last three seasons.
“In the present, what he is doing has made him a very important player, a key player,” Zidane said. “He is very good at everything. But what he does, he always does it towards the goal, so to speak. He does not just stay [still] on the field, but he always attacks space at speed. He is a complete player. He did not seem to be one, but in the end, he is!”
But Zidane made sure to say that he knows Spurs are more than just Kane, days after Pep Guardiola so upset Pochettino by calling Spurs “the Harry Kane team”.
“We know that Kane is a very good player and things are going really well for this player,” Zidane said. “But Tottenham is not just Kane. This is a very good team, we are going to prepare this game very well.”
