If you're anything like FourFourTwo, you'll have spent more than the odd occasion dreaming of winning a World Cup Golden Boot – of writing your name into footballing folklore following a barnstorming summer on the biggest stage of all.
In those dreams, the setting is always grand; pitch side as your team-mates celebrate winning the tournament, or in a theatre packed full of legends of the beautiful game.
Yet after speaking to England captain Harry Kane for the new issue of FourFourTwo, which you can order here, we were stunned to find out the reality can be quite different.
“We had just landed back in England when the World Cup final was on," Kane, who scored five goals for the Three Lions to steal the top-scorer gong at Russia 2018, recalls. "I wasn’t watching it – I was driving back to London from Birmingham. I started getting texts through that said, ‘Congratulations, you’ve won the Golden Boot’.”
Kane became the first Englishman since Gary Lineker in 1990 to win a World Cup Golden Boot, following a summer in which England came agonisingly close to reaching their first final since 1966. Despite their heroics that summer, and the prize for scoring more goals than anyone else, Kane admits to feeling deflated at the end of it all.
“Winning the Golden Boot was incredible but it was a strange feeling," he tells FFT. "Because we’d gone out of the tournament and were so disappointed about that.”
Qatar 2022 marks a new opportunity for success, however, and England will be hoping to go at least one better than they did four years ago. If Gareth Southgate's side are to succeed, it may take another goal glut from their goalscorer-in-chief this winter.
Order the new issue of FourFourTwo.
