Harry Kane won the 2026 Ballon d’Or. But long before his goals for Tottenham, Bayern and England, he was already in Football Manager. His first appearance was in FM2010, when he was only 15 and still two years away from his Spurs first-team debut. So we looked at how Sports Interactive saw him back then. And the answer is as much a hit as a miss.
Harry Kane before England v Panama at the 2026 World Cup. Photo: Bryan Berlin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Kane at 15 in FM2010
In FM2010, Kane was at Tottenham as an attacking midfielder and striker. In other words, SI was not sure where to play him yet, but it saw something there. Also, he stood at 1.80 m and was a long way from the box striker we know today.
Kane’s real FM2010 profile (Image: Retro Football Manager / Sports Interactive)
What SI got right
First, the technique. Kane had 14 for first touch, a high number for a 15-year-old. He also had 14 for natural fitness, and he has rarely been injured throughout his career.
There are two more curious details. On one hand, he had 14 for crossing and 10 for corners, and years later he was the one taking England’s corners at Euro 2016. On the other, he had 14 for influence, the attribute now called leadership. So, in a way, SI already saw a future captain. He was also decent in the air, with 13 for jumping reach.
What he proved wrong
However, the problem was in his head, at least according to the game. Kane had 9 for composure, 9 for creativity and 8 for decisions. Worse still, he had just 5 for determination, and 8 for teamwork and work rate. Finally, his finishing was only 11.
In other words, FM2010 described a talented kid who did not work hard and had no cool head in the box. Today, it is hard to think of a more wrong picture. Still, there was something to work with. So plenty of FM2010 players turned him into a top striker with game time and good training.
Miles Jacobson’s apology
SI later admitted the mistake. In 2016, studio director Miles Jacobson told the Daily Mirror that he had apologised to Kane. During his loan years, the game did not believe he would go that far.
The two met at the London Football Awards. Then Jacobson told him SI gets around half a per cent of players wrong, and Kane was one of them. The striker’s reply is the best part of the story: one of the reasons he worked so hard was to make sure his stats in the game got better.
From the academy to the Ballon d’Or
Kane’s road to the top was anything but straight. After Tottenham’s academy, he went on loan to Leyton Orient, Millwall, Norwich and Leicester. Only under Tim Sherwood did he get a run in the first team, and he never looked back.
More than 600 club games and 91 England caps later, he won the 2026 Ballon d’Or. In his speech, he thanked the academy coaches who believed in him from the start. After all, some humans saw what FM2010 missed.
Our take
Kane’s story proves that a youngster’s attributes in FM are a forecast, not a verdict. Still, it also shows what SI does well: the first touch, the injury resistance and the leadership were there at 15. So next time you release a youngster with 5 for determination, think twice. In FM27, of course, Kane is one of the best strikers in the game, as you can see in our list of the best strikers in FM27.
Sources
- SPORTbible, 28 October 2026
- FM2010 attributes shown by the Retro Football Manager channel on YouTube
- Miles Jacobson interview with the Daily Mirror (2016)