HARRY KANE is ready to go to ‘war’ with Jude Bellingham as English football’s two great exiles prepare to face off in a Champions League semi-final.
Kane’s Bayern Munich and Bellingham’s Real Madrid ended Premier League interest in Europe’s elite competition with quarter-final victories over Arsenal and Manchester City on Wednesday night.
And Kane, who left Tottenham for Bayern last summer, says he and Bellingham snubbed moves to English clubs to give themselves a better chance of competing at the sharp end of the Champions League.
Kane said: “Jude has had a fantastic season, he’s a top player, so I’m really happy for him.
“But it will be another war against his team but these are the experiences that we both went abroad to try to achieve.
“To play in these big nights in the Champions League, to play in these big semi-finals.
“It will be one to enjoy and I’m sure there will be a lot of English fans watching both of us. We have to focus on ourselves. I’ll say hello but once we’re on the pitch, it’s business.”
Kane and Bellingham are both targeting a Champions League Final at Wembley on June 1, ahead of England’s Euros campaign in Germany.
And Kane said: “Wembley is the dream for both of us, for sure. With Wembley being our national stadium, it’s extra motivation for us
“But there are two games ahead of us before that, which are going to be really tough so we have to focus on that.”
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Kane and his Bayern team-mates, including fellow Englishman Eric Dier, watched Real’s penalty shoot-out victory over City from their Allianz Arena dressing-room after they had defeated Arsenal 1-0 to complete a 3-2 aggregate success.
The England captain said: “We watched in the locker room, having a bit of food – Real Madrid are a big club with an amazing history in the Champions League so it’s going to be a really difficult game for us.
“But that’s what the semi-finals of the Champions League are all about, playing the biggest teams.”
Kane says Bayern boss Thomas Tuchel – a Champions League winner with Chelsea in 2021 – is determined to sign off with the European Cup before he leaves Bavaria this summer after his side surrendered their Bundesliga crown to Bayer Leverkusen.
He added: “We are going to stick behind Thomas as long as he is here, until the end of the season.
“He has given all his energy to make us successful in this competition and we feel we can come together and finish his reign here on a high.
“We need that togetherness, we’ve lacked it a bit in the Bundesliga this year, we’ve had it in the Champions League, so we are going to need more of it in the semi-final.
“It feels amazing to be there. Credit to Arsenal, they put up a tough test but in the second leg we knew we had an extra five per cent, which was the crowd behind us.
“We knew we could find a way to get through and that’s what we did.
“The first half, I thought the game was 50-50, a bit cagey, but in the second half we came out with a real intensity, we had a few chances that hit the post and we got the goal, we stuck together and we saw it through.”
