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Harry Kane Starts Champions League Final After Recovering From Injury

Harry Kane Starts Champions League Final After Recovering From Injury

The Spurs forward got injured in the quarter final first leg against Manchester City and hasn't played since.

Ryan Sidle

Ryan Sidle

Harry Kane is starting the Champions League final against Liverpool after being injured at the beginning of April in the game against Manchester City at the Spurs Stadium.

The biggest question for Spurs ahead of their first ever Champions League final was whether or not Harry Kane would recover from injury in time to make the starting line up.

Mauricio Pochettino's side have had to play most of their quarter final tie and the entirety of their semi final without their top scorer after he was injured in the first leg of their last eight game against Manchester City.

The England captain has had several weeks to recover since the end of the season and play his way into fitness during training, with the Premier League season finishing three weeks ago.

Even up until Saturday night it hadn't been confirmed if the 25 year old would be able to take his place in the starting line up or not.

With just an hour before kick off the starting line ups for the final in Madrid were released with Kane amongst Pochettino's XI.

It was expected that Lucas Moura would be dropped in favour of Kane, as long as the striker was fit, despite the Brazilian scoring the hat-trick that took the north London team into just their fourth European trophy.

And that was the case. The Brazilian scored three in 45 minutes, including the last minute winner, against Ajax in the semi final second leg and has scored five this season in Europe to help Spurs to qualify but has to make do with a place on the bench to start.

Moura scored a dramatic hat-trick against Ajax in Amsterdam. Image: PA Images
Moura scored a dramatic hat-trick against Ajax in Amsterdam. Image: PA Images

For Liverpool the big question mark was over Roberto Firmino. The Reds' forward missed the last three games of the season, including the second leg against Barcelona and he does start up front with Sadio Mane and Mo Salah.

Naby Keita had already been confirmed missing the game through injury earlier in the week.

The Kane situation is similar to the one that faced Atletico Madrid in their final with local rivals Real in 2014. Diego Costa was injured before that game but was deemed fit to start.

The striker lasted just nine minutes before being taken off with the injury and was replaced by Adrian with Atleti going on to lose 4-1 after extra time.

s Pochettino right to be starting Kane?

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