Another Golden Boot for Harry Kane? – a look at the striker’s European exploits

Kane’s goal against Bayer Leverkusen on Tuesday was his 10th of the Champions League season.

featured-image

Kane’s goal against Bayer Leverkusen on Tuesday was his 10th of the Champions League season and, here, the PA news agency looks at how his record in Europe’s elite competition compares. Dennis Viollet’s nine goals for Manchester United in the 1956-57 European Cup had stood for nearly 70 years as the record by an Englishman. Viollet scored five goals against Anderlecht in the preliminary round, including four in the home leg.

He added a brace against Borussia Dortmund and scored in both legs of the quarter-final against Athletic Bilbao. In the Champions League era, no Englishman had scored more than Kane’s own eight-goal tally last season. He is also the leading English scorer in the competition over a full career, with this season’s exploits lifting him to 39 and taking another record off Wayne Rooney, who previously led the way with 30.



Kane passed Rooney as England’s record scorer in 2023. Kane got this season off to a flying start in Europe, scoring four goals in Bayern’s 9-2 rout of Dinamo Zagreb. He netted against Barcelona and Slovan Bratislava later in the league phase and then versus Celtic in the first leg of the knockout play-off round.

A first-leg brace in the all-German last-16 tie against Leverkusen took him past last season’s tally and alongside Viollet’s record, and he scored again as his side won 2-0 in the second leg and 5-0 on aggregate. Harry Kane is the first Englishman to score 🔟 goals in a single Champions League / European Cup campaign. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿⚽️ #FCBayern #MiaSanMia #UCL pic.

twitter.com/sJkD05iMAG — FC Bayern (@FCBayernEN) March 11, 2025 Kane trails only Raphinha in this season’s Golden Boot standings in Europe, with the Barcelona winger’s double against Benfica earlier in the evening taking him to 11. The England captain is alongside Serhou Guirassy of Borussia Dortmund on 10 goals, one ahead of Barca striker Robert Lewandowski.

Kane shared last season’s top-scorer accolade with Kylian Mbappe, then at Paris St Germain before his summer move to Real Madrid, and will have his sights on an outright win this time around..