Harry Kane's goalscoring record provides striking contrast to European rivals' attacking woes

Just as night follows day, another round of international fixtures means another clutch of record-breaking achievements.

It's the inevitable march of progress - as more football matches are played, more goals are scored. When those goals are tallied up they will, at times, surpass a total which carries some historical significance or result in a nice round number with a zero or two at the end.

While Harry Kane was breaking the England goalscoring record on Thursday, Cristiano Ronaldo won an unprecedented 197th international cap and Lionel Messi scored his 800th top-level goal.

Kane's record is a biggie, at least for parochial English fans, but I have a slight sense of feat fatigue about Ronaldo and Messi's latest landmarks.

Admittedly, feeling apathetic about such extraordinary scoring stats – Messi is now on 99 goals for Argentina and Ronaldo chalked up his 119th and 120th in Portugal's win over Liechtenstein – is a first-world footballing problem.

For the past two decades, while England supporters have celebrated more than a century of goals from Kane and Wayne Rooney, other nations have been scratching around for a top-class finisher.

Italy went into their game against the Three Lions with seven forwards who had scored just 14 international goals between them, although debutant Mateo Retegui added to that tally with a smart strike in Naples.

Lazio's Ciro Immobile, an injury absentee on Thursday, had started up front for the Azzurri during their triumphant Euro 2020 campaign but he was largely ineffective after the group stage and was substituted 55 minutes into the final despite the fact that Italy were trailing 1-0.

At the age of 33, four years older than Kane, Immobile has a modest international record of 15 goals from 55 appearances and there is a similar dearth of striking talent in Spain.

La Roja begin their Euro 2024 qualifying campaign at home to Norway on Saturday and new coach Luis de la Fuente's first squad includes just 11 players who went to the World Cup.

Spain gained plenty of plaudits for their run to the Euro 2020 semi-finals despite winning only one of their six games in 90 minutes. They thumped Slovakia 5-0 and beat Croatia 5-3 after extra-time but scored only three times in their other four matches against Sweden, Poland, Switzerland and Italy.

It was a similar story at the World Cup, where Spain thrashed Costa Rica 7-0 in their opening game before a 1-1 draw with Germany, a 2-1 loss to Japan, and a penalty-shootout defeat to Morocco in the last 16. They had one shot on target in 120 minutes against the Atlas Lions and missed all three of their penalties.

Following the retirement of 2010 World Cup winner Sergio Busquets, Alvaro Morata is Spain's new captain – an appointment that is unlikely to herald a new era of clinical finishing for La Roja.

Despite scoring 30 goals in 61 caps and playing for Real Madrid, Juventus, Chelsea and Atletico Madrid, Morata remains an unconvincing leader of the line but there don't appear to be many progressive alternatives. The 35-year-old Iago Aspas is back in the squad for these qualifiers and Joselu of Espanyol is hoping for an international debut at the age of 32.

In the past 20 years only one Spanish player – Mallorca's Daniel Guiza in 2007-08– has finished as La Liga's top goalscorer and this term Barcelona's prolific Pole Robert Lewandowski is leading the way.

If transfer rumours are to be believed then Erling Haaland of Real Madrid will be dominating the Spanish scoring charts in forthcoming campaigns. Haaland, however, has pulled out of Norway's squad for Saturday's qualifier in Malaga, offering some respite for Spain's defenders and for those of us whose heads are spinning from his relentless record-breaking feats for Manchester City.

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