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Harry Kane
Harry Kane and his England team-mates go through their routines during a training session on Wednesday. Photograph: Olly Greenwood/AFP/Getty Images
Harry Kane and his England team-mates go through their routines during a training session on Wednesday. Photograph: Olly Greenwood/AFP/Getty Images

Harry Kane turns to kitchen rather than training ground for England recipe

This article is more than 6 years old
The England captain hopes the ‘marginal gains’ he has made by taking nutrition even more seriously will continue to benefit player, club and country

Harry Kane was striving for marginal gains. Those little tweaks to his daily preparations that would assist recovery time amid a cluttered fixture schedule, and always with the fatigue he had endured back in the summer of 2016, after a year where football had hauled him from postseason tours of Australia to the European Championship in France via the shlep of Premier League and Europa League campaigns, still foremost in his mind. If he was to retain his edge, particularly with a daughter on the way, then something had to change.

Yet even Kane, a model professional who will captain his country against Slovenia on Thursday, probably never appreciated those improvements would be made not on the training pitch but in the kitchen. “It clicked in my head a football career goes so quickly, so you have to make every day count,” said the striker.

“But you can’t train as hard as you’d like when you have so many games to play, so you have to make the little gains elsewhere. So, over the last year or so, I’ve made them on the nutrition side. I was recommended a chef and, when I spoke to him, it blew me away a bit. When he explained what the body does and how he could help me recover … it opened my eyes. I’d always eaten well, never badly, but he explained what you could do. It’s not always about just eating the right food, but eating it at the right times.

“You can eat healthily all week and then stock up on carbs before a game, but your body might not be used to that and could actually go into a kind of shock. So it’s about making plans around training, maybe stocking up on carbs sometimes, and going lower at other times. I started doing that on 1 January, a new year’s resolution. We had a baby on the way, we knew she would take up a lot of our time, but I was cooking, my missus was cooking, and the food was getting boring …”

That prompted a yelp from Kane’s national manager, Gareth Southgate, at his side. “Sorry, not my girlfriend’s cooking, just mine,” offered the Tottenham Hotspur player in haste. “No, the chef is with us Monday to Saturday, and leaves the meals in the fridge for Sunday, so I can follow the programme.

“I want to maximise my potential and it seems to be working. When you’re playing Saturday, Wednesday, Saturday there’s not a lot of time to train, so it’s about making those little gains in other ways: ice baths, stretching, nutrition … little things that keep as you as fresh as you can be. He helped me in the recovery from the injury earlier this year, with certain foods I was eating.” Kane endured two spells out with ankle ligament injuries last season but on the second occasion, in March when he was following the nutritionist’s food plan, the initial diagnosis of an eight-week lay-off proved overly pessimistic. The striker was back in four.

“He’s absolutely the kind of role model you want,” said Southgate of his striker. “Clearly our sport has changed massively over the last few years in terms of preparation. But you’re talking about a player trying to maximise his ability and finding every edge he can. The marginal gains make a massive difference at this high level. Far more of a difference than at a lower standard of football. You want a mindset in a player where he wants to become one of the best in the world because, for me, that’s a mindset that will inspire others. The more people like that in my squad … well, it starts to become a self-fulfilling prophecy with everyone always striving for more. They’re not at the level they want to be at yet, so everyone’s hungry for more.”

The England setup are attempting similar tweaks to enliven the customary routine to eke more from those at their disposal. Southgate invited Alan Shearer to St George’s Park this week to speak to his squad, “telling stories about England and his whole career, what he’d come through, the ups and downs, even penalties,” said Kane.

There was even a discussion on how Shearer was poacher turned gamekeeper given his current role as a pundit. “We wanted to understand what that takes, how the mindset changes,” said Kane, who has not ruled out the possibility of playing abroad in the future.

“As a player I’m sure he was probably like most players when he was criticised: not too happy. And now he’s the one criticising. But, really, all that matters is what goes on in your head, and staying focused on your own job. If someone criticises you, you prove them wrong.”

His recent record has choked any criticism at source. Kane scored 13 goals in eight games in September alone, and has five from his last four caps under Southgate. He has scored timely goals, that equaliser at Hampden Park in June the most noteworthy, and merits wearing the armband given the inspiration he currently provides. “But I don’t see any of it as pressure,” he added. “When people talk about me it means I’m doing well. When they’re not, I need to start worrying.

“But I don’t focus too much on it. Of course, when you’re scoring goals opposing teams are going to have a certain game-plan against you, but that’s a good appreciation to have. It shows you’re doing well. I appreciate good players, but Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are doing it every week consistently. That’s what I aspire to do.”

There was an admission to one guilty pleasure – “apple crumble” – but everything else had Southgate purring at his side. The marginal gains will benefit Kane, club and country.

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