Harry Kane can finally smell the coffee. The 30-year-old Bayern Munich striker knows he has an excellent platform to beat all comers to the annual European Golden Shoe awarded to the top scorer of a domestic continental league. The England captain goes into this weekend’s home rubber against paper weights Heidenheim in the form of his life, having already plundered 15 Bundesliga goals, bludgeoned a trio of hat tricks and netted a further four goals in the Uefa Champions League.
His 15 German top flight goals are four more than Manchester City’s Erling Braut Haaland who beat him to last season’s gong with 36 goals to his own 30 while still Tottenham Hotspur’s spearhead attacker. Kane’s closest pursuer is Stuttgart’s Serhou Guirassy on 14 goals but the Guinean striker has been injured for the last fortnight. Italian Serie A leading marksman Lautaro Martinez is third on 12 goals.
Kane’s relentless hunger for goals has been fueled by an increasingly intense contest for this season’s Bundesliga title with Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen who go into the weekend unbeaten after ten outings and two points ahead of Bayern Munich. The Bay Arena outfit are highly favoured to outwit a bedraggled Union Berlin outfit that only ended a 12-match losing streak on Wednesday by forcing Napoli to a 1-1 draw in the Uefa Champions League.
With an average of almost four goals per game, the Bundesliga is European football’s highest scoring league. Another goals avalanche is anticipated when Gerardo Seoane’s five time champions Borussia Moenchengladbach host Nico Kovac’s unpredictable Wolfsburg on Friday night. The pick of the matches on Saturday afternoon is Stuttgart’s home rubber with a Borussia Dortmund side in triumphant mode after beating Newcastle United 2-0 in a Champions League group game.
FRIDAY
Gladbach v Wolfsburg
SATURDAY
Augsburg v Hoffenheim,
Darmstadt v Mainz,
Stuttgart v Borussia Dortmund,
Bayern Munich v Heidenheim,
Bochum v Koln,
SUNDAY
Bayer Leverkusen v Union Berlin,
Werder Bremen v Eintracht Frankfurt,
RB Leipzig v Freiburg