Harry Kane is the winner of the 2026 Ballon d'Or - after over 600 club appearances, six different clubs and 91 caps for England.

Kane's path to the top is an inspiring one for any young player. After starting out in Tottenham's academy, he spent loan spells at Leyton Orient, Norwich, Millwall and Leicester before being given an extended opportunity in the Spurs first team by Tim Sherwood - one of the many coaches he mentioned in his Ballon d'Or-winning speech.

It took until he started scoring goals for Spurs for some to recognise just how good he could become - and not even everybody at Spurs backed him to succeed. Kane thanked his youth coaches Bradley Allen and Chris Ramsey, as well as then Spurs assistant manager Alex Inglethorpe, in his Ballon d'Or speech as three people who believed in him from the very start - and it has proved that they were absolutely right to.

Kane's first appearance in the Football Manager series was all the way back in Football Manager 2010, when he was a 15-year-old and still two years away from his senior Spurs debut.

Harry Kane's Football Manager 2010 rating

Sports Interactive did notice one key aspect of Kane's potential, assigning him as an attacking midfielder/striker and giving him a first touch attribute of 14, as well as 10 in passing.

They also gave him 14 in natural fitness - and Kane has lived up that number by being very rarely injured.

They also (in a way) predicted that Kane would be taking corners for England at Euro 2016, giving him 14 for crossing and 10 for corners. Sports Interactive also tagged him as a future captain with 14 influence (which is now the leadership stat).

His ability in the air was also highly-rated, with 13 in jumping reach and 10 in heading - impressive attributes for a 15-year-old striker who only stood at 5ft 10in back then.

Kane's mental attributes, though, are what he has defied in the years since. He was only given a rating of 9 for composure, 8 for decisions and 9 for creativity - all of which you can, of course, train to be significantly higher on Football Manager.

He also has just 5 when it comes to determination, as well as 8 for teamwork and work rate. As for his finishing, Kane was given 11.

There was enough to work with, though, to convert Kane into a top-level striker with the right amount of game time and training - and numerous players were able to do just that over the course of FM10. Just like in real life.

Football Manager chief apologised to Harry Kane

Miles Jacobson, the studio manager at Sports Interactive, once admitted that he apologised to Kane at an awards ceremony for his in-game rating at a time when he was still eagerly awaiting his Spurs breakthrough.

"We did always have him as alright," Jacobson told the Daily Mirror in 2016. "I have personally said sorry to him because there was a long period where he was on loan at other clubs and we didn't think he was going to reach the heights that he has done.

"I met him at the London Football Awards, and he is known for playing a lot of computer games. I said, 'We get 0.5 per cent wrong - you were the one that we got wrong'. And he said to me one of the reasons he was trying so hard was to make sure his stats were better in the game."

Football Manager 2027 launches with a free preview on October 29, where Kane will once again - as is now customary - be rated as one of the best strikers in world football.