The Irish boss says the Tottenham Hotspur star was considering a future with the Ireland camp.
There is no doubt that Harry Kane has been the breakthrough performer in the Premier League this season. The 21-year-old striker has been in fantastic form for Tottenham Hotspur this season. His two goals against QPR at the weekend took his tally for the season to 26 goals in 41 appearances – more than he could ever have envisioned netting this term.
Now he is on the verge of an England call-up for the fixtures later this month.
But it could have been so different.
Because yesterday Martin O’Neill confirmed that his agent originally contacted him about playing for the Republic of Ireland. The Tottenham striker qualifies for Ireland through his father and the current Ireland boss is quoted by The Daily Mail as saying:
“The order of events – though I don’t think it’s really important any more – is that initially the agent got in touch and said that he would have a keen interest, and we wanted to go and chase it up.
“But then I noticed in the newspaper where he said he wanted to play for England. And that has remained the same. Someone was even speaking to him recently and that was exactly the same conversation. Fine, if that’s the case.”
Of course that was before he became one of the country’s deadliest striking options. He had previously been struggling to feature in the Tottenham first-team, let alone breaking into an England team with the likes of Wayne Rooney, Daniel Sturridge and Danny Welbeck all ahead of him in the pecking order.
Thankfully he never did play for Ireland and hopefully England fans can enjoy the Tottenham star playing for the Three Lions for years to come.
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