Before we start this week, anyone who has spent time following football in Germany knows that there is a hat trick and then there is a Dreierpack. We must always make a clear distinction.
The former refers only to a pure hat trick, following strict guidelines: all three goals must be scored by the same player in one half of play, with no goals scored by anyone else in between. That takes some doing.
A Dreierpack is the more liberal description used when a player simply nets three times in one game, as Harry Kane and Oliver Burke -- English and Scottish forwards respectively -- did in the Bundesliga past weekend. It's what the rest of the world calls a hat trick.
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Kane and Burke might sound a bit like a local butcher's shop in the Yorkshire Dales, and both did much to savage their opponents on Matchday 4. They might both hail from the Insel -- the island, as the U.K. is often referred to by Germans -- but there the similarities end.
I find myself thinking that if anything, I probably underestimated Kane before he arrived in Munich in 2023. Of course, we all knew he was a highly productive finisher, but his range of attributes seemingly gets more substantial with the passage of time. As a commentator -- and Saturday away to TSG Hoffenheim was my third Bayern match for the world feed and ESPN this season -- you must be constantly on your toes to keep track of the inevitable new records the England captain seems destined to smash almost weekly.
In this case, it was a new best for penalty taking excellence: 17 successful kicks out of 17 to launch a Bundesliga career, representing brand-new territory for any player.
On Friday, amid the always cheery Oktoberfest atmosphere, Kane has the chance to bag his 100th goal for Bayern Munich in all competitions in only his 104th game for the Rekordmeister. He's two goals short, and so if he does bring up the century mark -- as we would likely back him to do -- it will make him the fastest man to hit this milestone while playing for a club in a top-five European league.
Cristiano Ronaldo and Erling Haaland needed 105 matches.
It's easy to play the numbers game with Kane. Nine times now he has scored a Bundesliga Dreierpack, and he is off to the hottest start imaginable this season with 13 goals in seven competitive games and eight goals in four matches in the Bundesliga.
But at times in Sinsheim on Saturday, I found myself thinking less about scoring exploits and assists and more about Kane, the mature, clever footballer. I lost count of how often he varied his position, operating as a twin striker or playmaker, a step to the right here, a dance to the left there, a threaded pass for good measure. Kane even dropped back to collect the ball between the two central defenders in the manner usually reserved for Joshua Kimmich. There was a string of effortless-looking, well-weighted passes covering 40 or 50 meters.
We are watching a complete player at the peak of his considerable powers, and he never stops the quest for improvement. It is almost as though Jamal Musiala's injury absence has guided Kane to the conclusion that he can and should hone even more of his creative skills. There are even higher gears to find.
No less a figure than Lothar Matthäus said this week he hopes the Englishman chooses to stay with Bayern until his career ends, and there is merit to the argument that he should. The Bayern move came at the right time in his career, and who's to say he won't at some stage crown it all off by lifting the UEFA Champions League trophy? With Bayern, this is attainable.
Burke finally delivering on his enormous potential
Burke, born in Kirkcaldy, doesn't enjoy anything like Kane's worldwide profile. Indeed, his career trajectory has truly been an Achterbahnfahrt (a rollercoaster ride).
He joined RB Leipzig as a teenager, and he was hailed as potentially a top attacker in the making based on a remarkable physique and athleticism. The hardware was in place, but as then-coach Ralph Hasenhüttl observed, it was a matter of refining the software.
Alas, for years, the updates failed to perform. Burke became known as the lost footballer, the athlete who didn't have properly developed football awareness. It was a struggle for him to find his true football home as he bounced from club to club, many of them attractive addresses, including Celtic.
But it was last season when Werder Bremen in the Rückrunde (second half of the season) that things began to click. In a previous spell at the club, he had enjoyed flashes such as scoring the late winner away to Borussia Dortmund in 2022. Now, though, under Ole Werner -- a coach known for improving his squad members -- it was starting to come together in his appearances off the bench or from time to time as a starter: touch, anticipation, execution levels, all upped. The pace has always been there.
Burke's brace in the 2-1 win away to VfB Stuttgart back in April confirmed the uptick, and Bremen's rivals Union Berlin were only too happy to swoop and sign him on a free transfer. A low-risk proposition for Die Eisernen. In scoring a Dreierpack against Eintracht Frankfurt, Burke became the first Berlin player to net three goals in a Bundesliga away match and the first Scot to do so full stop in the top division of German football.
You would think such a formstark (in-form) player would be an automatic selection for a Scotland team with attacking limitations. But as a Scot, I think I'm allowed to say that we often dwell on the negative and, in this case, on the player of five years ago rather than the more rounded one who exists today.
I hope that Steve Clarke -- the Scotland head coach -- has been watching closely and sees what a terrific Plan A and Plan B option Burke in his modern guise could be.
Kane and Burke are due to find themselves on the same pitch on Nov. 8 in Berlin when their clubs are on a collision course. Kane will certainly lead his country's charge at next year's World Cup. Burke must entertain hopes of joining him in North America. Can he provide the X factor for Scotland as they try to break a 28-year qualifying jinx?
Either way, the Bundesliga is now fertile territory for attacking players born in the U.K. and their wider football aspirations.