It’s not impossible for Harry Kane to become an NFL kicker one day but I’d still put it at very long odds. 

I have seen guys jump from being soccer players to kickers but, even then, they’re usually in their early 20s and only make it to college football. The only real exception is the current kicker Brandon Aubrey, who was drafted by side Toronto before making the switch to NFL.

The big difference is that NFL kickers have focused on one thing for a very, very long time. They probably started specialising in kicking field goals around the age of 13, so by the time they make it to the NFL they have been at it for ten years. Just kicking field goals, nothing else. It would be like a soccer player not practising tackling, passing or even general shooting but just taking free-kicks, non-stop, for a decade.

So, even when you’ve got someone who’s athletic and is a sensational soccer player, like Harry Kane, it’s going to be hard to actually be as good as somebody who just did one thing for many years.

People often compare it to golf but, even then, you have different types of swings, different clubs, different lies. When it comes to kicking, every time you step on the field your goal is the exact same thing you have done since you were 13: hit the ball as far and as straight as possible every single time. Then go back through the video and nitpick every little detail so you can hit it farther and straighter next time and do it over and over and over again. It’s intense and it’s boring, too. This is why it’s dominated by people who have that mental strength to perfect one simple skill.

I’ve coached loads of NFL kickers, including Philadelphia Eagles’ Jake Elliott. These guys aren’t just amazing on game day. They are on it every single day. Their supreme leg strength is probably the least of all the factors to make it. You have to have the skill set and mentality to be almost 100 per cent every single day.

Harry Kane faces a difficult challenge if he wishes to make it as a professional NFL kicker

That’s not to say he can’t do it. It took Aubrey about two years of focused, intense training. If Kane put all of his mind and training into it, he could probably get to that level in a year or two if his body doesn’t give out beforehand due to age or overuse.

Even then, there’s so many other kickers that he would be competing with for his job. Ones that are polished and experienced and have the knowledge of kicking in high-pressure situations.

And they have to make them. Kickers have to make above 90 per cent of their attempts to have a job, basically. If you are below 90 per cent, if you miss more than maybe three field goals over the course of a season, they are going to look to replace you.

That’s a different pressure to even those experienced by elite soccer players, just from the nature of the game.

To land a spot as an NFL kicker, which is one player per team, you would have to be in the top 32 in the world at what you do. The coach that takes a chance on Harry Kane is putting their job on the line to give him a shot. If it all goes sideways, that same coach might lose their job.

There are some similarities in the technique. They can be launching it more than 60 yards and if you look at the kicks, they’re high and dead straight. There’s zero movement on the ball. In that sense, maybe, it’s more similar to a defender striking it long than a striker.

Brandon Aubrey has warned the England skipper that his job is not as simple as it may seem

There’s lots more body behind the ball because you’re striking a stationary object. You can really get your whole body behind it. In soccer, things are always moving, you’re hitting it off balance, with players around you, from different angles, everything like that. The difference is in being able to maximise getting as much body behind the ball in every strike.

If I had any piece of advice for Kane, it’s this: drills, drills, drills. Do as many as you can. A kicker’s body only has so many full-strength kicks in them in a day or a week, but at half-speed, where you can just dial it in, you can do those from sunrise to sunset. Do it.