Soccer Bundesliga: Harry Kane and his predecessors as superstars

Many players left the Bundesliga as superstars, fewer – like Harry Kane now – came to Germany as superstars. Some have lived up to the reputation, some have not.

A good 70,000 people followed Harry Kane’s flight, which took him from London to Oberpfaffenhofen, via relevant apps. Shortly thereafter it was perfect, the transfer of a superstar to the Bundesliga, of which there have only been a few in the 60-year history.

Players like David Alaba, Franck Ribéry, Robert Lewandowski and most recently Erling Haaland left the Bundesliga as superstars. When they came, they weren’t. It was very different with Kevin Keegan, for example. The transfer of the Englishman, who won three championship titles, two UEFA Cups and the European Cup with Liverpool, was considered a sensation in 1977. Keegan joined Hamburger SV after winning the previous Champions League competition with Liverpool. His move was accompanied with a similar amount of fanfare as Kane’s now, only without the Internet and ever-present “transfer gurus”.

We look back at the Superstars’ Bundesliga days ahead of Kane and the England striker’s debut.

Harry Kane

One goal, one assist, won 4-0 at Werder Bremen. Harry Kane’s Bundesliga debut went according to the wishes of FC Bayern and those of the newcomer. “He is absolutely impressive and makes every team-mate better”coach Thomas Tuchel enthused about Kane.

Kevin Keegan

The little striker who first fooled his opponents in the Bundesliga on August 6, 1977 was called “Mighty Mouse”. However, the debut went pretty badly. HSV lost 5-2 at MSV Duisburg.

The trade magazine “kicker” wrote about the debut: “Of course, the focus of interest was the duel between Kevin Keegan, who bought millions, and Bernard Dietz from Duisburg. The MSV international was the clear winner on points.”

Keegan became German champion with HSV in 1979, then switched to Southampton FC in 1980.

Arjen Robben

He was considered a superstar, but above all he was also considered to be very injury-prone. Therefore, there was great doubt as to whether Arjen Robben would help FC Bayern Munich. He helped. The Dutchman, who came from Real Madrid for around 25 million euros, scored two goals in his first Bundesliga game on August 29, 2009 in a 3-0 win against VfL Wolfsburg.

Robben became champions with Bayern eight times and crowned his time by winning the Champions League. In the 2013 final against Borussia Dortmund, he scored the winning goal to make it 2-1.

Luca Toni

Another superstar moved to Bayern from abroad in 2007. Luca Toni became world champion with Italy in 2006, having previously been top scorer in Serie A. He scored 31 goals for Fiorentina at a time when Italian football was much more defensive than it is today.

Toni was also top scorer for Bayern right away. Of the 24 goals in the season, he scored one in each of the first three Bundesliga games of the 2007/08 season, including his debut against Hansa Rostock on 11 August.

Luca Toni won the league and DFB Cup with Bayern in 2008 and 2010. In the 2009/10 season, however, he contributed little. Because of a falling out with coach Louis van Gaal, Toni rarely played and was loaned to AS Roma for the second half of the season. In the summer he then moved to FC Genoa.

Ruud van Nistelrooy

For Manchester United he scored 95 goals in 150 games in the Premier League and 50 goals in 96 games for Real Madrid in La Liga. The quota in the Champions League is incredible: 73 appearances, 56 goals. Ruud van Nistelrooy is a “natural born striker“, a “nine” that couldn’t be more classic.

Expectations were correspondingly high when the Dutch center forward joined Hamburger SV in January 2010, even though he was 33 at the time. “RvN” made his debut on February 6th in a 3:3 draw at 1. FC Köln – without a goal, because he had only been substituted on in the 90th minute. Coach Bruno Labbadia wanted to play for time with the change, but Cologne equalized in the attempt.

Van Nistelrooy started the 2010/11 season promisingly with three goals in two games, but added just four goals in 23 more appearances. In the summer of 2011, van Nistelrooy moved to FC Malaga in Spain.

Raul

When asked how he managed to persuade Raúl González Blanco to switch from the “royal” to the “squires”, then-Chairman of the Supervisory Board Clemens Tönnies said: “I charged him emotionally.”

How? Watt? The Raúl joins us, the legend of Real Madrid, who won the Champions League three times and was champion six times? The FC Schalke 04 fans couldn’t believe it any more than the supporters of other clubs and the reporters. Doubts were raised as to whether the superstar would work hard for the Bundesliga club. They were quickly scattered. Raúl González Blanco, the Señor, also became a Schalke legend.

His first four Bundesliga games were lost, including his debut in a 2-1 loss at Hamburger SV on August 21, 2010.

Before Raúl followed the call of money in 2012 and moved to al-Sadd SC in Qatar, he won the DFB Cup with Schalke in 2011 and reached the semi-finals in the Champions League, in which the Gelsenkircheners failed to Manchester United.

Javier Hernandez (“Chicharito”)

Like Ruud van Nistelrooy, Javier Hernández had played for Real Madrid and Manchester United before moving to the Bundesliga. The Mexican, known as “Chicharito” (little pea) like his father, joined Bayer Leverkusen shortly before the end of the transfer period in August 2015. His debut on September 12th went horribly wrong with a 1-0 home defeat against SV Darmstadt 98.

The “kicker” wrote at the time that Hernandez had almost made a “dream debut”, but Darmstadt goalkeeper Christian Mathenia had brilliantly parried a header. So the newcomer said: “I’m happy about the debut, but not about the result.”

After two years at Leverkusen, Chicharito joined West Ham United in the premier league.

Sadio Mane

After a long dry spell, he had won the championship again with Liverpool FC, including the Champions League. In the meantime he had fallen into a slump in form, but recovered. There was little to suggest in late spring that Sadio Mané would leave the club coached by Jürgen Klopp. But FC Bayern managed to sign the Senegalese in the summer of 2022. A coup, everyone agreed, even if it was a bit strange that winger Mané was considered the successor to center forward Robert Lewandowski.

The debut on August 5 was impressive. He scored one goal in the 6-1 win on matchday one at Eintracht Frankfurt and two in the 7-0 win on matchday three at VfL Wochen.

Shortly before the World Cup break, Mané was injured, and he only scored one of his seven Bundesliga goals for Bayern afterwards. Sadio Mané now plays for al-Nassr in Saudi Arabia.