From forgettable EFL loan spells to being crowned the best player in the world, it is no wonder Harry Kane’s former boss thinks of his Ballon d'Or win as a fairy tale. "This is a Cinderella story we've never seen before," ex-Tottenham boss Tim Sherwood, who gave Kane his full Premier League debut, tells Sky Sports. "He keeps breaking records, and I keep thinking, 'Are we talking about the same kid?' "There was always a chance, because he felt like there was no ceiling - he would always just break through and go further.
"I mean, not even Harry would say he could believe it, I would suggest." The Bayern Munich striker has become the first English Ballon d'Or winner in 25 years and just the fifth in its history. The last English winner, Michael Owen, had a simpler route to the top, winning it aged 22 in 2001, just four years after his senior debut at Liverpool. Kane's win has come at the age of 33, some 15 years after his senior debut on loan at Leyton Orient in League One.
"I think we have to highlight his journey," says Sherwood, who Kane thanked on stage when collecting the Ballon d'Or. "Even when we go back to Michael (Owen), he was a superstar as a kid, and he got the opportunities at a very young age at Liverpool, which is a giant football club. "Kane came through the hard way, really.
He was a player who wasn't universally loved. "He's not like a Max Dowman, for instance, who is a superstar at 16 years of age. "He (Kane) struggled to get some game time and to get a manager to really, really buy into what he had." Kane even mentioned his tough path to the top in his Ballon d'Or acceptance speech.
He said: "My journey wasn't straightforward; I didn't go straight to the top, I had to experience a lot of loan moves and fight my way to get to where I am now." For Sherwood, it was those low-key loan spells at Orient, Millwall, Norwich and Leicester that have turned Kane into the world's top player. "I hear a lot of people talking about failed loans," he says, "but we never felt like that because we felt that him playing in U21 football was a waste of time. "They were really good loans, and those loans were the reason why we've got a player like that." Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player Kane was out in the cold at Spurs until Andre Villas-Boas' sacking, when Sherwood's subsequent arrival opened the door.
He handed Kane his first-ever Premier League start - and the then-20-year-old took his chance as he scored the opener in a 5-1 home win over Sunderland in April 2014. "He wasn't getting anywhere unfortunately," Sherwood says. "He wasn't around the first-team squad, so I suppose it's a sliding doors moment that I managed to take over until the end of the season and I managed to give him a stage where he could perform." Kane has hit nearly 550 goals for club and country to become Tottenham's record scorer, England's all-time scorer, England's leading World Cup scorer and the top English scorer in Champions League history.
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