Harry Kane for England - the only non-negotiable in Thomas Tuchel's Three Lions squad

For really the first time in his international career, Jordan Pickford has genuine competition for his place as the first-choice goalkeeper, and Leeds United's James Trafford will be hoping for the chance to ramp it up with an appearance either at home to Croatia on Thursday, or in Spain on Sunday. One more cap seems likely, two feels like a push.

But his club-mate Dominic Calvert-Lewin just has to accept he was born at the wrong time – anyone who wants to be England's centre-forward in this era can forget about it unless their name happens to be Harry Edward Kane.

Tuchel has already confirmed the 33-year-old will be leading his team out at Wembley – anything else would be cruel.

Getting Kane to miss internationals is a tough job in itself. The number of dead rubbers or easy victories he has featured in is very high but no one should criticise him for being hungry to wear the Three Lions, or even to add to a prodigious goal tally which currently stands at 91.

Even putting him on the bench against the team he scored twice against in October's astonishing 7-0 away win with only a point needed to qualify for the quarter-finals would be an act of cruelty.

For starters: Thursday is the night Kane will be presented with the Ballon d'Or as the best player in Europe – and by extension the world – in the season just gone. It will also be the night he breaks Peter Shilton's record of 125 caps, a record he set in 1989 and extended over the next year.

Yes, internationals are more ten-a-penny than in Shilton's day with competitions like the Nations League springing up and FIFA's greed expanding World Cups beyond what is sensible.

But Wayne Rooney, David Beckham, Steven Gerrard, Ashley Cole and Frank Lampard all made it to three figures this century without any going past a goalkeeper who might have played more often had he not been part of a Pickford/Trafford-style rotation with Ray Clemence early in his England career.

And to those of us of a certain age, 49 goals felt like the glass ceiling for England players.

Now it is hard to know where Kane will stop. A ton feels likely.

Bobby Charlton hit his 49th goal in his 101st appearance, in 1970, but could not bring up his half-century in five more caps.

Gary Lineker looked a cert for 50 at one stage, but got stuck in the mud when Graham Taylor foolishly lost faith with him in 1992, missing a penalty for 49 in what proved to be his final appearance, then being controversially substituted for Alan Smith in a European Championship defeat to hosts Sweden.

Alan Shearer only made it to 30 before his international career came to a premature end but when Michael Owen burst onto the scene as an 18-year-old, the record looked under threat again. His time with England fizzled out too, hamstring injuries cutting the country's last Ballon d'Or winner short at 89 caps and 40 goals by the age of 28.

Finally, in 2015, 29-year-old Rooney made it to 50 on the night Kane got his third goal. Thirteen more caps reaped just three more.

Kane has obliterated that, and looks a far more complete player than even then one who set a new record with his 54th goal in 2023.

Then he was a Tottenham Hotspur player, a brilliant No 9, but since moving to Bayern Munich he has developed into an exceptional "false nine" – spending as much time in midfield as up front, and even helping out defensively. He is one of the best midfielders around.

Kane was edging in that direction in his late 20s, but his time in Germany has taken him to a new level.

“I actually don't see a better player, but I see a player that believes he can win,” argued Gareth Southgate, the manager who took him to two European Championship finals and 98 caps. “That's happened to him in the last month alone would have given him another boost of confidence.

“If you sit there and you think: 'My peers, experts, the world has voted me as the best player in the world,' my goodness, how good is that going to make you feel when you've been a player that people said can't even make it as a professional?”

Like Rooney, Kane could extend his career by dropping deeper on the field, a chink of light for those centre-forwards, like Sheffield-born Calvert-Lewin craving a look-in.

His recently-signed new Bayern contract is due to keep him playing for almost three more years. At the rate he has been winning them lately, that would be 36 more caps.

The lessons of Lineker, Shearer, Owen and Rooney is that the end can come abruptly and unexpectedly. Despite what his hairline might have you believe, Charlton was only 32 when he retired.

Whether he makes it to 100 goals or not, Kane is a special talent England should be forever grateful for.