Kane goes back to where it all went wrong

Seven years is a long time to carry one night around with you. Kane's Tottenham side lost the 2019 final to Liverpool on this same turf, and his return in Bayern Munich colours, now as a 33 year old attacker with a Ballon d'Or in his cabinet, had the sort of symmetry that writes its own headline before a ball is even kicked.

According to The Guardian, it was Karl who did the real damage, slipping in behind the Atlético defence to score the goal that inspired Bayern's win in Madrid. For a club that has built so much of this season around Kane's finishing, it was a teenager who took the moment, and nobody at the Wanda Metropolitano seemed to mind less than Kane himself.

A different Kane walks back in

The Ballon d'Or changes how a player is watched, even in a competition he has already played hundreds of games in. This was Kane's first European outing since winning it, and Bayern under Vincent Kompany have given him every platform to keep building on that award. The move from Tottenham, two and a half years on, looks less like a gamble with every trophy and every return to a ground that once broke his heart.

Bayern's night in Madrid

Kompany's side arrived at the Wanda Metropolitano sitting top of the Bundesliga, and left with a result in a city that has given plenty of visiting teams trouble down the years. A win at Atlético Madrid, in the competition Bayern actually want to win this season, carries a different weight to anything picked up domestically.

Karl, not Kane, writes the headline

There is something fitting about the fact that Kane's redemption night belonged, in the moment that counted, to someone else entirely. Lennart Karl's goal, described by The Guardian as the product of him stealing in behind the Atlético back line, is the kind of contribution that gets a teenager noticed inside a squad that already has an England captain and Ballon d'Or winner leading the line.

Kane did not need to score to leave Madrid with the result he wanted. The scoreboard read in Bayern's favour, seven years and one stadium on from the night it didn't.