Harry Kane has revealed his ambition to break Wayne Rooney’s England goalscoring record before the Three Lions jet off to the World Cup in November, though wouldn’t be disappointed with reaching the milestone on football’s biggest stage either.
The Tottenham striker has grabbed 49 goals for his country and trails former Man Utd star Rooney by four strikes.
England kick off the first of six Nations League matches prior to this year’s World Cup on Saturday with a trip to Hungary, and Kane has admitted that while he has his sights set on Rooney’s record, it’s not something he will give thought to when on the pitch.
“I’d like to break it as soon as possible, I’d love to score as many goals as I can in the next four games before the World Cup and see where we go from there,” he said ahead of their trip to Budapest.
“But I’m someone who doesn’t let that stuff affect me when I’m on the pitch, I have a job to do, it’s not about goalscoring records and thinking about stuff like that when I’m on the pitch, it’s about the team getting three points and winning the game.
“So of course I’d love to do it as soon as possible but if it doesn’t happen for some reason and it goes into the World Cup then so be it, the World Cup is probably the best competition in the world so I’ll have a lot of focus on trying to achieve that and go on and win that, so we’ll have to wait and see.”
He added: “It seems like a long time ago when I made my debut now, at the time it was just about playing for England, that was one of the best feelings, still is one of the best feelings every time I pull on that shirt.
“Back then it wasn’t a number I had in my head, of course I wanted to score as many goals as possible and play as long as possible. It all goes so quickly, the major tournaments come around so quickly, the games come quickly and year-by-year you edge up that leaderboard.
“It’s great to be close to 50, obviously I am still a few goals behind Wazza but the most important thing is to go out there and perform for my team and that is what I’ll try and do.”
