World Cup 2018: Harry Kane might be the closest thing to Cristiano Ronaldo that England ever produce

This is meant to be the tournament of low expectations for England, but their captain is never happier than when burdening himself with the heaviest pressures in football. They are no handicap to Harry Kane, but fuel for his internal fires of dedication, improvement and ambition, the forces that have got him this far.

That is why he is here, captaining England at a World Cup, scoring both goals in their opening 2-1 win over Tunisia. It was a classic Kane performance, delivering decisively when everything was on the line, somehow even exceeding the comic-book expectations people already had for him.

But then Kane is more willing than anyone to pile these expectations onto himself. When he said on Sunday night that he wanted to score a hat-trick to catch Cristiano Ronaldo in the Golden Boot race, some thought he was joking. But his team-mates didn’t, and Kieran Trippier said afterwards that Kane would be “devastated” to have flown back from Volgograd to St Petersburg in the early hours of Tuesday morning with just two goals to his name, not three.

The huge shadow of Ronaldo is increasingly present in discussions of Kane, and not just since his scarcely believable hat-trick in Sochi last Friday, his three shots heard round the world. Of course there can be no direct comparison between the greatest goal-scorer in football history and a man who, for all his achievements, has yet to win a proper trophy in his career.

But Ronaldo is Kane’s hero, and the England captain is desperate to follow the same path. Not born great, but achieving greatness, proving what a supremely dedicated footballer can achieve if he maximises every tiny aspect of his game. Kane loves Ronaldo’s work ethic but in his decisiveness, his athleticism, his futuristic completeness, his leadership-by-goals, you can see that Kane might just be the closest thing this country ever produces to the man with five Champions Leagues and five Ballon’s d’Or.

Sure enough, when Kane was asked in Volgograd about aiming for Ronaldo’s crown, he said that he wants to be the best there is. Precisely the same ambition Ronaldo has been expressing for 15 years now.

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“To be the best player in the world you have to aim high, you can’t aim low,” Kane said. “Put no limits on yourself, nobody should. I worked hard to get where I am, I have a lot of determination and I enjoy being here.”

Kane has 108 Premier League goals already in his career but he knows the next step is in international competition. After a disappointing Euro 2016, and a last-16 exit of the Champions League this season, that put extra pressure on the World Cup this year. But Kane could barely have started it any better than he did.

“It is about stepping it up,” Kane said, again accepting the burdens on his shoulders. “I want to prove myself at a major tournament, I want to be up there with the best in the world and the only way to do that is to perform on the big stage and in the big moments. I have been itching to get out there and showcase myself on the big stage.”

As well as external expectation, Kane has always stoked his fires with external doubts. Anyone who suggested he did not deserve to play for Tottenham, or for England, he turned into motivation for himself. And even now, as acclaimed as he is, he still fuels himself the same way. “I had to prove people wrong throughout my career and I love proving to myself I can do it,” he said. “Ronaldo is the best in the world, up there with Messi, but the challenge is there to be with them.”

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None of this is any surprise to those who know him best. Kieran Trippier has played with Kane at Spurs for three years now, and he was asked what makes Kane so special. The ambition, the relentlessness, the supreme dedication, it could all have stood in as a description of Ronaldo instead.

“It’s his character, his personality, I see that on a day-to-day basis,” Trippier said. “He dedicates his life to football. He’s so professional. He's the first one in, the last one out every single day we're in. He looks after himself, doesn't drink alcohol or anything.”

Coupled with that is an unshakeable self-belief and commitment to his own productivity on the pitch. “He’s not happy when he doesn’t score, he would have been devastated he didn’t get another goal,” Trippier said. “His mindset for every game is that he’s going to score.” Trippier pointed to the 2016-17 golden boot race when Kane was trailing Romelu Lukaku with two games left. So he put four past Leicester City, three past Hull City, and won the trophy back.

Gareth Southgate has noticed that self-belief too in Kane, and he said that marks him out as being amongst the true elite. “You see it in the top, top players,” Southgate said. "The best do. The Gerrards and the Shearers and the Lampards do. I could go on. It's the psychological strength that separates the really top people from the ones that are the next level down."

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Southgate said that England are “fortunate” to have Kane, and when Trippier talked about his team-mate, captain and friend, it was an earnest enthusiasm and admiration. “We are all buzzing he’s on our team,” Trippier said. “He has a presence, when he’s with you just feed off him. He lifts you when he’s around.”