Harry Kane goes from "inconspicuous" to "king" as German media react to 100th Bundesliga goal

Another Bundesliga appearance, another Bundesliga milestone for Bayern Munich marksman Harry Kane, who was at the front and centre of the Bavarians' 7-0 annihilation of Union Berlin on Friday night.

Fresh from being named in Thomas Tuchel's England Nations League squad, the 33-year-old fired in a brace at the Allianz Arena, thus registering his 100th and 101st Bundesliga goals on his 98th top-flight appearance.

Kane's magnificent achievement unsurprisingly made him the quickest player to reach 100 Bundesliga goals, shortly after the ex-Tottenham Hotspur man was the target of an apparent sly dig from Ballon d'Or rival Lamine Yamal.

The Barcelona phenom publicly affirmed that the most prestigious individual award should go to the "best player in the world" as opposed to an '80-goal striker', pointing out the top scorer award for the latter achievement.

However, in customary Kane fashion, the England captain responded by doing his talking on the pitch, and he was inevitably lauded by the German media after hitting yet another goalscoring landmark.

Abendzeitung-Muenchen gave Kane a top score of one in their player ratings, hailing the 33-year-old as a 'force to be reckoned with' after he reached 152 goals in 154 Bayern games across all tournaments.

Meanwhile, Merkur conceded that Kane was 'inconspicuous' for the opening 35 minutes of the contest, before reverting to 'king Kane' status and earning the maximum score.

FCBinside waxed lyrical about another Kane "masterclass" and strengthened the forward's case for the 2025-26 Ballon d'Or award, which he was already a leading contender for.

Away from pure ratings, Welt labelled Kane 'the benchmark striker in world football', while Tz highlighted the fact that not even Gerd Muller could keep up with Kane's tremendous scoring rate.

If goals did not win the Ballon d'Or, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo would not have taken home 13 accolades between them, and superstar attackers will naturally be front and centre of the nominations.

Only a handful of exceptions exist in the 21st century - Rodri, Luka Modric, Kaka and Fabio Cannavaro among them - and every net-bulging achievement from Kane makes his case even harder to ignore.

The 33-year-old's chances were damaged by Bayern's failure to win the Champions League and England's inability to end 60 years of World Cup hurt, though, meaning competition from the likes of Rodri and Ousmane Dembele will be exceptionally fierce.

Nevertheless, Kane remains the bookies' favourite to hold the golden ball aloft, which would make him the first English Ballon d'Or winner since Michael Owen a quarter of a century ago.

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