Harry Kane bagged his third 'hat-trick' for Bayern Munich in their clash against Borussia Dortmund on Saturday - or maybe he hasn't officially, according to peculiar German rules.
Scoring three goals in the space of one game is no mean feat and any striker worth their salt will try their best every game in a bid to take home the match ball.
Back in September, Kane managed to score his first three goals in the same game for Bayern after his summer switch from boyhood club Spurs, as the England captain's side thrashed Vfl Bochum 7-0 in the Bundesliga.
He would also score another three goals in Bayern's emphatic 8-0 win over Darmstadt.
Here in England, three goals in the same game for a player is described as a hat-trick and Kane would be forgiven for thinking he has netted three of them.
But according to Bundesliga rules, Kane technically has not yet scored his first hat-trick for Bayern, and the regulations seem to make the task quite a challenging one.
In Germany, players must score their three goals in sequence and in the same half.
It means that because Kane's goals were spread across both halves, or with other Bayern players scoring in between, he technically is yet to bag his first Bundesliga hat-trick.
An example of this happening in the past came for Borussia Dortmund and involved two players now plying their trade on different sides of Manchester in Erling Haaland and Jadon Sancho.
Haaland scored three goals in the second half of his Bundesliga debut in the 5-3 win over Augsburg in January 2020, but he was denied a hat-trick in the classic sense owing to Sancho netting in between the Norwegian's first and second strikes.
It might seem a bit harsh, but rules are rules at the end of the day - and at least Kane managed to claim the match ball from referee Robert Hartmann at the end.
Comments