Watkins talks up Kane rivalry before Champions League clash with Bayern
Aston Villa striker ‘wants to be the man’ for EnglandBayern Munich visit Villa Park in repeat of 1982 final
The question related to Harry Kane and the easy answer was the equivalent of a tap-in but instead Ollie Watkins paused before offering a candid assessment of the nuanced dynamic at play. For Watkins, Kane is his England captain, a teammate but also, to put it bluntly, the guy he is trying to displace. Kane, of course, is the country’s all-time record goalscorer and a guaranteed starter. But in Dortmund three months ago Watkins replaced Kane to score a superb, instinctive 90th-minute winner against the Netherlands to send England into the Euro 2024 final.
It was surely the biggest moment of the Aston Villa striker’s career, an extraordinary journey that has taken him from on loan at Weston-super-Mare to the Champions League, in which Watkins and Kane are likely to line up against each other on Wednesday. Bayern Munich and Kane flew to Birmingham on Tuesday before a rerun of the 1982 European Cup final in Rotterdam, won by Villa courtesy of a Peter Withe goal.
