Bundesliga
King Kane in career-best form
Just when you thought Harry Kane was done breaking records at Bayern Munich for the time being, the England captain has gone and set another personal best.
Kane’s late penalty against Mainz on Matchday 14 not only helped the Bundesliga leaders avoid a first league defeat of the season, it was also his 50th goal for the record German champions in 2025.
It is the first time the 32-year-old, who found the net 39 times for Bayern in 2024, has hit a half-century of club goals in a single calendar year.
Robert Lewandowski is the last player to achieve that feat during his time in Munich, having scored 58 goals for the club in 2021.
Watch: Kane netted from the penalty spot on Sunday
Forty of Kane’s 50 strikes have come in the Bundesliga, while he has also netted six in the UEFA Champions League, three at the FIFA Club World Cup and one in the DFB Cup.
Kane’s favourite opponents over the past 12 months have been Werder Bremen and Hoffenheim, whose defences have been breached four times by the star striker.
His tally of 18 goals in 14 appearances this season is a joint Bundesliga record, equalling his own 18-goal haul at this stage of his debut Bayern campaign in 2023/24.
Sunday’s goal against Mainz was his 80th in 77 Bundesliga outings for the club. The late Gerd Müller, by contrast, needed 113 games to reach 80 goals for the Bavarian giants.
Watch: Is there anything Kane can't do?
It was also the 20th Bundesliga penalty Kane has taken – and scored – for Bayern. No other player has taken so many spot-kicks and maintained a perfect record in Germany’s top flight.
Only eight days earlier, Kane became the fastest player to hit 10 hat-tricks in Germany’s top division when he struck three times off the bench in Bayern’s 5-0 win over Stuttgart on Matchday 13.
Only Müller – who needed 161 appearances to hit 10 hat-tricks – Lewandowski (16), Mario Gómez and Klaus Fischer (both 12) have bagged more Bundesliga trebles than Kane.
The first player in Bundesliga history to finish top scorer in both his first two seasons in Germany, the Three Lions skipper is already blazing a trail at the top of the charts this term, having scored 10 more goals than the division’s second highest scorer – Frankfurt’s Jonathan Burkardt – after 14 matches.
If he keeps plundering the goals at his current rate - Bayern end the year away to second-bottom Heidenheim on Sunday - the former Tottenham Hotspur man will comfortably reach a century of Bundesliga strikes before the current campaign draws to a close.