Harry Kane wins Ballon d'Or: from EFL loan spells to the world's best player

England and Bayern Munich striker Harry Kane has won the Ballon d'Or, football's most prestigious individual award for the best player in the world. The ceremony took place in London. At 33, Kane is the first English winner in 25 years and only the fifth in the award's history. The previous English winner, Michael Owen of Liverpool, took it in 2001 at the age of 22.

A route through loan spells

Kane made his senior debut about 15 years ago, on loan at Leyton Orient in League One, the third tier of English football. He later had further loan spells at Millwall, Norwich and Leicester. Former Tottenham manager Tim Sherwood, who gave Kane his first Premier League start, says those loans were valuable and are the reason the club ended up with a player of this calibre. Sherwood says Kane was not universally loved and struggled to get game time. In his acceptance speech Kane himself said his journey was not straightforward and that he had to go through many loan moves.

He made his first Premier League start in April 2014, scoring the opener in a 5-1 home win over Sunderland.

Records and the move to Germany

Kane has scored almost 550 goals for club and country. He is the all-time leading scorer for both Tottenham and England, and the top English scorer in Champions League history. Last season he scored 73 goals in all competitions, 61 of them for Bayern, which was 19 more than any other player in Europe's big-five leagues.

In the summer of 2023 he moved from Tottenham to Bayern for £100m. Sherwood says Kane wanted to join a team capable of winning, and in Munich he has won back-to-back Bundesliga titles and a German Cup. Sky Sports pundit Jamie Carragher believes Kane could not have won the Ballon d'Or while at Tottenham, though he still ranks Bobby Charlton as England's greatest ever player.

Sherwood suggests Kane may eventually return to the Premier League to chase Alan Shearer's all-time record of 260 goals. Kane is 47 short of it.