4 June 5, 2022The Sunday TimesFootball
me when I’ve been doing Italian
lessons and now he thinks I’m an
expert. In fact, he now only speaks
Italian to me. But it’s all good. There’s
a mixture of languages in the dressing
room and English is still one of the
dominant languages.”
Mourinho and this engaging,
perpetually upbeat, 24-year-old
appear to have gelled. Asked to
compare his club boss to Gareth
Southgate, Abraham grinned. “They
have quite a few similarities,” he said.
“The most important one is player
management. Gareth and José — José
when he’s happy — their player
management is good. They speak to
the players on and off the pitch.
“I’m still getting messages fromthe call-up and was told I was
starting, the first moment of stepping
on the pitch... I just remember being
nervous. It was overwhelming,” he
said. He is more worldly now.
He had never been to Rome before
signing for Roma from Chelsea in
August and has found it “amazing to
learn about the history and culture
and the different style of living”. He is
determinedly mastering Italian. “At
times, because it’s such a hard
language to learn, you can’t be
bothered. But, for me, I dedicated my
mind towards learning a different
language while I’m away because it’s
something you can take with you
throughout your life,” he said.
“José [Mourinho] has walked in onrotated for one of the matches,
Tuesday’s clash with Germany could
be Abraham’s big opportunity — and
the Germans were the opposition on
his first senior appearance, in
November 2017. Then, Abraham was
a 20-year-old loanee with Swansea
City who had never started a league
match for his parent club, Chelsea.
Now, he is a Champions League,
Super Cup and Europa Conference
League winner, and a record holder
after scoring the most goals by an
Englishman (17) in a Serie A
campaign.
Abraham, who has scored three
goals in ten England appearances,
remembers his gaucheness on his
debut. “Thinking back to when I gotTammy Abraham believes that
“whatever happens in my life was
meant to be” and that leaving
England to become a sensation in
Italy “was meant to be my journey,
my different story to tell”.
The 24-year-old Roma striker
hopes that the golden narrative arc
he has been on for the past 12 months
will continue for the rest of this cycle
of Nations League games. Preferred
by Gareth Southgate to Ollie Watkins,
Callum Wilson and Dominic Calvert-
Lewin, the four matches give
Abraham a chance to cement himself
as England’s No 2 striker.
With Harry Kane likely to beJonathan NorthcroftH
arry Kane is good at pop-
ping up in the right
places and when other
players headed on holi-
day once their club sea-
son was over, Kane went
to New York to be on The
Tonight Show Starring
Jimmy Fallon. Not a bad
move for someone who
loves the United States and would
consider playing in the MLS one day.
Smart, going into a summer when
the 28-year-old’s future could be
resolved. Tottenham Hotspur want to
extend his contract, which expires in
2024, while Real Madrid and Liver-
pool are among the elite clubs looking
for a striker. Right there, on one of the
world’s biggest talk shows, was a
reminder of Kane’s marketability.
However, Kane’s true appeal lies in
what he does, not what he says, and
he stands only four goals behind
Wayne Rooney’s England scoring
record, after a remarkable streak of 15
goals in 12 games for his country.
Rooney’s tally of 53 could well beJonathan NorthcroftBrady gave a glare that Kraft
remembers boring into him “like a
laser”. “That’s right,” the rookie, pick
No 199, replied, “and I’m the best
decision this organisation has ever
made.”‘Brady has said the
difference between
good and great, is
executing in the
biggest games’Abraham:
José is still
sending me
messages
Kane has his own, dead-eyed, tun-
nel-visioned stare — which was evi-
dent during a group Zoom interview
during Euro 2020 at a point when his
performances were being criticised.
Someone asked when the “real Harry
Kane” was going to show up. Kane’s
look almost burnt our laptop screens.
“I know the chances will come... and
when they do I will be more than
capable of putting them away,” he
replied. The chances did come and
were duly taken.
You could even say there is a “Kane
6” — the six forwards Kane played
with in the England Under-21 2013-14KANE AND THE
The battle for recognition,
the work ethic; how NFL star
became hero for England’s
record goalscorer in waiting
between good and great is executing
in the biggest games and when (it’s not
an if ) Kane breaks Rooney’s record,
he will really deserve it, because only
six of his 49 England goals and none of
his 14 England assists have come in
friendlies. He is level with Gary Lin-campaign, who scored in the Premier
League before he did. They are Saido
Berahino, Danny Ings, Raheem Ster-
ling, Nathan Redmond, Wilfried Zaha
and Tom Ince. Yet only Sterling has a
remotely comparable career.
Brady has said the differenceLESSON OF BRADY
overtaken by the end of this month’s
Nations League programme.
Fallon mentioned the England
record but a bigger theme in their con-
versation was Kane’s friendship with
the NFL legend, Tom Brady. Kane
spoke, as he has before, of how
Brady’s journey from unrated
prospect to unsurpassed, seven-times
Super Bowl-winner, is his inspiration.
He described being on loan at the
then second-tier Leicester City in
2013, aged 19, unable to get into the
team. It was his fourth loan from Tot-
tenham, who were not sure what he
would amount to, and for the first
time he doubted himself. “If I can’t
play for a Championship side,” he
thought, “how will I play for Spurs?”
He sat, in a lonely rented flat,
browsing YouTube and stumbled
across a documentary called The
Brady 6. It charts how Brady went
from being the 199th pick in the 2000
NFL draft to an all-time great and “The
6” are the six quarterbacks who were
drafted ahead of him before the NewEngland Patriots finally picked him
up.
There is film of an ungainly Brady
trying out at a scouting combine (a
showcase) for potential NFL recruits,
where his results in the speed and
jump tests placed him 576th out of 576
quarterbacks measured in the pro-
gramme’s history. A coach recalled
eyeing Brady and seeing a gangly kid
who looked like he’d “never even seen
a weight room”.
Kane thought of himself when he
watched that part of the documen-
tary, and of a line he’d often heard
when battling for recognition: “Well,
he doesn’t look like a proper striker.”
From that point Kane became a Brady
nut, resolving “to work as hard as pos-
sible — my chance is going to come,
and I’m going to grab it”.
After first chatting on Instagram he
and Brady, 44, became friends and
Kane told Fallon that Brady still
inspires him. The greatest of all the
quarterback’s assets is self-belief. At
his very first Patriots practice, the
franchise’s owner, Robert Kraft, said
to Brady: “I know who you are, you’re
our sixth-round draft choice.”