The Tottenham striker says he wants to end his sporting career in the NFL. But soccer skills don’t necessarily translate to American football

When the veteran NFL special-teams coach Mike Westhoff was told that the Tottenham striker Harry Kane was interested in pursuing a job as a kicker in American football after he retired from soccer, Westhoff replied, “I’d have no problem looking at him if it were me.”

Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, Kane is only 25 and made it clear in an interview with ESPN that he plans to play soccer for another 10 to 12 years, and Westhoff, the New Orleans Saints special-teams coach, already has a lethal 24-year-old kicker, Wil Lutz, who was also a high school soccer star.

Westhoff has been an NFL special-teams coach for 32 years, however, and special-teams coaches learn to never rule out an aspiring NFL kicker until they actually see him, or her, kick a football. So the first thing Westhoff would do is invite him to a workout. “I’d put a ball down and say, ‘Kick it,’” Westhoff told the Guardian recently. “Let’s see how far away he is,” – as in undeveloped.

Invite the guy in, have him kick a football, see how he does: sounds simple. But here Westhoff waves a red flag: it is not that easy. Westhoff has coached kickers who were good soccer players – Pete Stoyanovich and Olindo Mare at the Miami Dolphins – but they were football players at the same time.

Westhoff has discovered that soccer players who want to become football kickers don’t tend to do that well. He remembered inviting two “very accomplished soccer players” – one from the Middle East, one from South America – to the Dolphins’ compound for a workout. “Neither did very well,” Westhoff said.

Neither was terrible, Westhoff said. But he added, “There was a little bit there, but there was more work to do with them than I’d want to take on. They were not very efficient.”

Such transitions are actually rare. Tony Meola, a New Jersey native who was the US goalkeeper at the 1994 World Cup, was signed that summer by the New York Jets in the hopes of making him a kickoff specialist, because he produced booming goal kicks in soccer. Meola had never kicked a football competitively or off a tee, however, and he was unable to generate all-important hang time on his kickoffs so that his teammates could get downfield and make tackles. He also hooked his kicks. Meola was cut after the third preseason game.

Although kicking is a vital part of soccer and football, the sports are quite different. The first challenge for a placekicker in football, Westhoff says, is to kick the ball under a heavy rush in 1.3 seconds – 1.25 seconds for the very good kickers. He said soccer players can control the ball very well in congested areas, but, as he said of an extra point or a field goal, “You’ve got to do it right now. No hesitation.”

Although it is about six feet wider than a pair of NFL goal posts, a soccer goal presents a much tighter target because the goal is only eight feet high, and there is no roof, or lid, on football goalposts. But kickers must be able to give the football lift, Westhoff said – to be able to kick the ball with enough power and height that it can reach the seats. Reaching the seats, of course, is not the idea in soccer – they want the ball to end up in the net.

'The desire is real': Harry Kane says he wants to play in NFL Read more

Suppose an aspiring soccer-player-turned-football-kicker impresses Westhoff after a little tryout. That would only be the beginning of a long process. Westhoff would have the kicker try extra points and field goals with a long snapper and a holder. Kickoffs would come next. “If he’s doing all these things at a high level of proficiency, then we invite him back to do it again,” Westhoff said. “Maybe he’s got a cannon for a leg – the ball explodes off his foot. Then maybe we sign him.”

Then would come off-season camps and training camp, which would include plenty of practices and scrimmages – Kane, 6ft 2in and 188lbs, would then wear pads and a helmet, though Westhoff said, “Believe me, the pads that kickers are wearing, apart from the helmet, are pretty minuscule.”

Kane is an unabashed NFL fan. He was in Atlanta to watch the New England Patriots win Super Bowl LIII. Kane especially likes New England quarterback Tom Brady, whose route from sixth-round draft pick to six-time Super Bowl winner has been an inspiration.

Harry Kane (@HKane) 50 yard field goal ✅

How far if I had my boots on!? 🤔

Great day with @NFL @Giants @TheHumble_21 doing some drills! #SpursInUSA #NFL pic.twitter.com/ZnQSQbhtWU

When Tottenham Hotspur were in the United States two summers ago for a series of exhibition games, Kane dropped by the New York Giants practice facility and drilled a 50-yard field goal – albeit untimed, off a kicking tee, under no rush and with no crowd. “How far if I had my boots on?” Kane wrote on Twitter.

Westhoff said, “I certainly appreciate the athleticism involved in soccer. You’d have to be in excellent shape to compete in the sport. I think it’s just so very different from football.”

Westhoff did say, though, that Kane’s success for both Spurs and England would be an asset. So would his enthusiasm for football and his determination to figure out how to fit his skills into another sport. “That would give him a little more of a positive slant,” Westhoff said.

It still sounds as if it would still take a lot to win over a coach like Westhoff, who broke into the NFL as a special-teams coach with the Colts in 1983 – when they were still in Baltimore. Besides the Dolphins and Saints, he was with the New York Jets for 12 years.

“I have found in my experience that there is very little correlation, very little in common, with football and soccer,” he said. “The guys who I’ve tried over the years failed miserably, and it wasn’t that they weren’t talented. To me the games are just so very different. I respect the differences between the two, but the skills are just so different.”