Champions League final: The Harry Kane conundrum could change Tottenham forever

Mauricio Pochettino’s star man has declared himself fit after six weeks out with an ankle injury suffered against Man City

The word from the Tottenham camp is that the players aren’t expecting to be told the team for the Champions League final until the afternoon of gameday, but the reason for that naturally goes so much further than maintaining an energy or a tactical surprise for the biggest game in the club’s history.

It is because Mauricio Pochettino and assistant Jesus Perez want to wait as long as possible for what may yet prove the biggest decision in the club’s history, and certainly the biggest for both sides ahead of this Madrid showpiece. That is whether Spurs’ best player and biggest name actually starts a fixture an entire career has been building towards, let alone a season.

Harry Kane of course declared himself fit this week, stating on Tuesday that “if the final was tomorrow, I would be fit to play”. He has repeated that with full belief in every meeting with Pochettino since, but the manager has much more to consider than any player’s inevitable conviction that they’re ready for such a game.

It is something made even more complicated because of Kane’s specific injury history, not to mention the way Spurs have got here since that ankle twist in the quarter-final first leg against Manchester City. That’s how long his absence has been, at six weeks. That’s how freighted this is, as Pochettino is fully aware of.

“It is a point we are thinking a lot about,” the Spurs manager admitted. “It is a decision that, one way or the other, will be judged after the game. If we win, it’s a genius decision… if we lose, it’s ‘why did he not play?’”

That’s why it’s been one of those weeks where Pochettino and Perez have been surveying every movement, every kick. Was that a hint of gingerness? Was that a clean strike?

Except the primary complication isn’t even whether Kane is match-fit, or fresh enough to do something in a one-off game.

It is that, when Kane has been out – and particularly when he has been out with an ankle injury – it has often taken him a few games to get any way back to form. He can look that bit more cumbersome, that bit less lively.

There’s then the danger of playing a forward who isn’t fully fit against someone so completely commanding as Virgil van Dijk. Any striker needs to be at their best to get anything off the Liverpool centre-half, not striving to get back to normal.

Even if Kane isn’t fully physically fit, though, there’s the multi-faceted mental effect of starting him. It will send a ripple around the stadium. It will get a reaction from Liverpool and Jurgen Klopp. It will give the Spurs players a boost.

And what of the potential mental effect on Kane himself? There are countless examples of players who are not fully fit raising their game to great levels because of the grandiosity of the occasion. You don’t even have to go as far as Javier Mascherano in the 2014 World Cup semi-final, or Roy Keane throughout the 1998-99 run-in. Spurs only have to look at the team across the pitch, from this year’s semi-final, and Jordan Henderson. He was carrying an injury in the second leg against Barcelona, but still lifting himself to ever greater levels.

Those who know Henderson put it down to his immense mental strength, and the fact he is a genuine big-game player.

Everyone at Spurs would say the same about Kane, maybe even more effusively. If anyone can rise above his physical level to produce a performance for a game like this, he can.

It is just one other reason why it is inconceivable that a player of his status misses a game of this status.

Harry Kane runs to embrace Moussa Sissoko after victory over Ajax (Getty)

But what of the player who would miss out? It would almost certainly be the hero of the semi-final, Lucas Moura.

Pochettino may feel that is far too harsh on a player responsible for all this emotion, but it is the logical decision if Kane comes in.

That in itself points to the tactical element of this dilemma, all the more so because Pochettino will almost certainly come up with something different to try and tilt the game in Spurs’ favour. Could the Kane decision actually serve this? Could it offer a surprise beyond just starting him? Could it give something Klopp can’t second-guess?

It is why this one decision has so many elements to consider.

It is also not far off unique. There aren’t too many similar recent examples of the bona fide star player struggling for fitness ahead of the Champions League final.

The only real precedent is from the side that normally play in this Wanda Metropolitano stadium, but it is not a positive one.

Diego Costa got injured the week before Atletico played Real Madrid in the 2014 final in the Stadium of Light, and Diego Simeone was so determined to get him fit they sent him for controversial horse placenta treatment with so-called “miracle doctor” Marijana Kovacevic. It didn’t work. Costa’s final only lasted nine minutes. It left the striker in tears on the bench, and left Simeone having to figure everything out again.

Kane is training and believes he is fit enough to start (Getty)

Perhaps this is why the most sensible solution might be to bring Kane on as a sub. It spares him the pressure to get fully physically fit, but would still have the psychological effect of a player like that coming on off the bench, raring to make an impact in this most important of games. Liverpool, similarly, would have to change up to tactically address what Kane brings.

Pochettino is naturally weighing all this up. He is also cold and ruthless enough to remove all emotion.

This one big decision does ultimately come down to one major factor.

“We are going to take the best decision to try to win,” Pochettino said last week.

It may yet be the decision that settles who wins. There really is that much to it.