Harry Kane has cemented his legacy as one of the greatest strikers of all time, but his path to the top could have been completely different if he hadn't been released from Arsenal's academy at the age of eight.

Kane will look to extend his incredible goalscoring record against the Gunners on Wednesday evening (October 21), when his Bayern Munich side hosts Arsenal in the Champions League.

Across an illustrious 19-year career at Tottenham Hotspur, where he became the club's record goalscorer before joining Bayern in 2023, the England superstar scored 14 goals in 19 appearances.

Harry Kane explains why he was released by Arsenal

The 33-year-old has since faced Arsenal on three occasions, notably scoring in the first leg of Bayern's Champions League quarter-final in April 2024.

Ahead of his latest showdown with the Gunners, Kane is currently a leading contender to win the Ballon d'Or alongside Barcelona's Lamine Yamal, and the former Spurs man can increase his chances of winning the award by destroying Mikel Arteta's defence once more.

Although the Three Lions record goalscorer went on to become a Tottenham legend after being rejected by Arsenal as a youngster, the reason for his departure only fuels him to continue making the north London giants pay for that decision.

In his own words, Kane was released from the Gunners because he was "small" for his age, but used that setback to sign for Spurs and eventually catch up his peers physically.

Speaking to the Telegraph in November 2015, a 22-year-old Kane said: "It's hard to tell at that age what the player is going to turn into,” Kane told the Telegraph. “I was only small at that age. I was small for my age. I was a late developer.

“As I got older and older, I grew up a bit, caught up to the rest of the players my age and it went from there, really.”

Naturally, the Englishman used that rejection as a "desire to prove them wrong", discussing his exit from the red corner of north London again in November 2024 and even revealing that he was almost released from Spurs too.

“I was eight when I was released by Arsenal. That might have built a bit of desire to prove them wrong," he admitted. "And when I first came to Spurs, I was close to being released.

“I was never the guy who everyone thought was going to do what I’ve done. I went on loan but still had to fight for my place, fight for the opportunity to show I could play at the level I wanted to.

“There have always been people who doubted me.”

Harry Kane's former coach explains why Arsenal released him

Arsenal can only reflect on what could have been after watching Kane become arguably the best striker on the planet.

But hindsight is a wonderful thing, and during his time in the academy, former Gunners coach Rob Massey didn't think the Englishman was good enough to be a professional.

Massey, who coached Kane in the Hale End academy, told talkSPORT in 2023: "To release Harry Kane…we don’t have a crystal ball.

“If we did then we would be successful in every youngster than we take on.

“Harry was a lovely young player. He was quiet, shy, didn't have what we thought it would take to become a professional footballer and so we were totally mistaken.

“Although I’ve got to say that when Harry was released when he was 11 or 12 years of age, he did go to play for his Sunday league club for the next three years so no other club’s picked him up in that age group.

“It was only when he was 15 he went to Tottenham and obviously he’s had great success.”

Kane has since scored 462 goals across an illustrious career and will hope to finally win the Champions League this season.