Harry Kane became the first English player since 1931 to score 50 goals for a top-flight side, reaching the mark in Bayern Munich’s 4-3 victory over Real Madrid in the second leg of the Champions League quarterfinals in April 2024.
Kane got there in 42 games across the Bundesliga, DFB Pokal, DFL Supercup and Europe’s top competition, a pace no Englishman has matched in more than 90 years. Wayne Rooney twice reached 34 goals for England, but an Englishman playing for a top-flight club has only ever gone past 50 goals in a single season once, when Dixie Dean scored 63 goals in 41 matches en route to the First Division title.
The benchmark is rare even beyond English football. Waring was the last player to reach a personal high after the 1925 offside rule change, doing so in 1931, and only eight players have ever reached 60 goals in a single season for a top European club. Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are the only players to have done that twice. Ronaldo first hit 60 goals in 2011-12 for Real Madrid and finished with 61 goals in 2014-15.
Kane still has a maximum of 10 more matches to play across all competitions, giving him a chance to push higher in a season that has already put him alongside a list of scorers usually reserved for the game’s most extreme outliers.
