Why Harry Kane's move to Germany has been an outstanding success by any metric, writes OLIVER HOLT

It is commonplace for a player to be criticised for moving for money but it is a strange thing indeed when a star footballer is lambasted for turning his back on the quest for individual records and pursuing his dream of winning a trophy with a team instead.

And yet when Harry Kane runs out at the Allianz Arena for Bayern Munich on Wednesday night for their Champions League season-opener against Chelsea, the suggestion that he was ‘nuts’ for moving to Germany in 2023 will still be ringing in his ears.

It was Michael Owen, another of England’s greatest goalscorers, who expressed astonishment recently that Kane moved to Bayern at the start of the 2023-24 season just when he was closing in on Alan Shearer’s record of 260 Premier League goals.

In a sport drowning in statistics and increasingly in thrall to the cult of the individual rather than the spirit of the team, Owen’s words struck a chord with many. Kane, they say, would have surpassed Shearer’s mark by now had he stayed at Spurs.

They may be right about that but they could scarcely be more wrong for suggesting that Kane was crazy to head for Germany to try to win trophies rather than stick around any longer in the search for personal glory.

I have the utmost respect for Shearer. He was a fantastic centre forward, a player to be admired and cherished. But his record is an artificial construct anyway, created by broadcasters who want us to believe English football began in 1992.

It is, ironically, testimony to the ephemerality of some records that most people seem to have forgotten that Jimmy Greaves, not Shearer, is the greatest goalscorer in the history of England’s top flight.

Greaves tops the all-time list with 357 goals – Shearer is fifth on 283 - but Greaves’ crime was that he played before the Premier League existed. Broadcasters, in particular, seem afraid to acknowledge the fact that anything before 1992 carried merit lest it should besmirch the sanctity of their product.

Quite aside from any of that, Kane’s move to Germany has been an outstanding success by any metric and that includes the fact that he and his family have broadened their horizons by experiencing a different culture.

Kane, who is 19th on the all-time list of English goalscorers with 213 top-flight strikes, was lampooned when he was in England for failing to win a trophy in his decade at Tottenham.

He was told, repeatedly, that his career was worthless because of it. He was told that his goals would count for nothing when it came to choosing who belonged in the pantheon of the game.

The fact that Spurs won the Europa League without him last season was also a cause of mirth for many but who knows if Spurs even would have been in the competition if Kane had still been at the club? They probably would have been playing in the Champions League if he had stayed.

It is irrelevant because not only has Kane's goalscoring in German football been phenomenal, not only is he averaging a goal a game, not only did he win European football’s Golden Shoe award in his first season in Bavaria as the continent’s top scorer, he also won the Bundesliga title last season.

I was at the Allianz Arena that day in May this year, when Kane lifted his first trophy above his head after a win over Borussia Monchengladbach and celebrated with his teammates and his family on the pitch with the kind of abandon that we have never seen him exhibit before.

Kane is a reserved kind of man. He does not often cavort but he cavorted that day and for those of us who believe he is still under-rated as a player, still not recognised for being a brilliant provider of goals as well as one of the most clinical finishers, it was wonderful to behold.

Most of all, Kane admitted when a group of us spoke to him an hour or so after the game, it was relief that he felt. Relief that he had won a major trophy at last. Relief that he was part of a winning team. And pride that he was now part of Bayern’s glorious history.

‘Nuts’ to do that? Nuts to be part of the sacred lineage that includes Gerd Muller, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, Thomas Muller and Robert Lewandowski? Nuts to be playing for Bayern, one of the world’s great clubs?

Nuts to be going into this season’s Champions League with one of the clubs who has a shot at winning it? Nuts to be have opened this season with five goals and three assists from his first three games?

No, the truth is that moving to Bayern was the best decision Harry Kane ever made. It has brought him everything he wanted and much, much more. It has made him a hero at two clubs, not just one. It has built his prestige as a goalscorer who could get excel in two of Europe’s top leagues.

And if there are still some who fret that he has sacrificed his shot at individual glories, they need not worry too much. When Kane scored England’s first goal in the 5-0 demolition of Serbia in Belgrade earlier this month, it was his 74th strike for his country.

That puts him 21 clear of Wayne Rooney in second, and 54 ahead of the next active player, Raheem Sterling, who does not look, sadly, as if he will be adding to his total any time soon.

Kane’s England record may well last beyond his lifetime. So if it turns out he never catches Shearer, something tells me he’ll cope.