England captain Harry Kane admits he’s proud to be spoken of in terms of one of the World Cup’s biggest players this summer.
The Three Lions striker has taken the competition by storm after scoring five goals in his first two games to stake an early claim for the coveted Golden Boot.
But as Kane and his squad-mates prepare for Tuesday’s knock-out game with Colombia, he remains focused on the bigger picture and making sure England progress.
“It’s what the World Cup’s all about, all the big players stepping up for their country and I’m proud to be a part of that,” admits the Spurs striker.
“I feel confident, as a striker, when you’re scoring and the ball is going in off your heel, you just want to be on the pitch.
“It was good to finish the season strongly and be able to take that into the internationals, scoring in the friendly [Nigeria] and then in the first two games at the World Cup.
“It’s now about continuing that and I’m hoping to do it over the next two, three or four games.
“For me, it’s just about controlling everything I can and making sure I’m as fit, healthy and recovered as I can be for each game.
“I’m coming into it [Colombia] off the back of a hat-trick and it’s a very important game for us.”
Since Thursday’s final group fixture against Belgium, which saw a much-changed line-up narrowly lose by 1-0, the squad have been hard at work at their base camp in Repino to prepare for Colombia.
And Kane believes everyone needs to treat the competition differently now the knock-out stages are looming.
“We’ve had a great start and won the first two games, but the tournament starts again now and this is the business end,” he said.
“We’ll just focus on getting through and finding a way to win. We can’t look too far ahead, it’s each game at a time.
“We haven’t been great over the years at doing that so now it’s an opportunity to put that one right.
“We’ve got a lot of confidence, it’s just about focusing on what we can do.
“We can’t take anything for granted, we’ve got to focus on ourselves and the way we’ve been playing and what we’ve been doing well.
“They’re [Colombia] a tough team and they’ve got some great players.
“The first job is done and now it’s about whether we can win knock-out matches.”
