Today's Edition
MUNICH (dpa)
Bayern Munich have a first chance to reclaim the Bundesliga title on Saturday, and honorary club president Uli Hoeness has said that no one deserves it more than their star striker Harry Kane.
England captain Kane, 31, has never won a big trophy of any kind, losing two League Cup finals in 2015 and 2021, and a Champions League final in 2019 with his previous club Tottenham Hotspur, plus Euro 2020 and 2024 finals with the national team.
He came to Munich in 2023 for a club record $114 million with the desire for silverware at last, after the club had won an 11th straight league title that year.
He became Bundesliga top scorer in his first season while the team had to bow to Bayer Leverkusen's Invincibles in the league and finished without a trophy at all for the first time since 2012.
But now Bayern are eight points clear at the top with four games left and can clinch a 34th national title, which would be a 33rd in the Bundesliga era, if they beat Mainz on Saturday and Leverkusen fail to win against Augsburg.
Bayern clobbered Mainz 8-1 in their last meeting in Munich in March 2024, with Kane Man of the Match with a hat-trick and two assists.
Kane is again the league's top scorer this term with 24 goals for a total tally of 60 from as many Bundesliga matches, and Hoeness heaped praise on him in an interview with Sky TV ahead of Saturday's game.
"If we win the championship, no one would deserve it more than him," Hoeness said.
"He has become a real Bayern player. He fights, he works, he scores an unbelievable amount of goals, and he also works for the team. You can feel that he badly wants to win this title."
Hoeness said he has no real doubts that Bayern will win the title "because we have it in our own hands," and because Leverkusen dropped points again in a 1-1 draw at St Pauli last weekend.
"You could see that they were very downcast after the game, and therefore I believe that we are in a very good situation," Hoeness
said.
