Harry Kane has scored 340 goals but just FOUR of them have come in semi-finals and finals after Bayern's Champions League exit doomed him to ANOTHER year without silverware... the stats behind his trophy trauma

Three minutes. That's the amount of time Hary Kane sat on the Bayern Munich bench waiting, watching, hoping that his team were about to book a place at Wembley in the Champions League final. 

Three minutes before Joselu broke his heart. Three more minutes and his rival Real Madrid forward had scored again to make it 2-1 and bring back that all too familiar sinking feeling. Another trophyless season for one of the best strikers in world football. 

Kane might wonder what could have been had he not been subbed by boss Thomas Tuchel in 85th minute. Could he have helped run down the clock? Could he have made the difference? He'll never know - but these are the questions asked about the England captain in major, defining games. 

Why does a player who is so talented often fall short in moments like this? It's a conundrum that will rage on until the 31-year-old finally does get his hands on that elusive first piece of silverware. 

There has been much talk of Kane's trophy 'curse'. Curses in football are the stuff of myth, folklore and fairytale. Early in his Tottenham career, he was dubbed 'the one season wonder'. Then he went through the 'never scored in August' hoodoo. The best players in world football don't let 'curses' get in their way of success - and Kane may yet finish his career with a shiny collection of medals. 

But after being three minutes away from reaching a very winnable final against Borussia Dortmund in his home country, you can't help but scratch your head over Kane and wonder how such a fine player could suffer such awful bad luck. 

He arrived at Bayern for £100million last summer with the main aim of finally winning trophies. This should have been a slam dunk silverware season, as it is every year for a club like Bayern. 

Instead, they suffered their first trophyless campaign since 2012. With Kane scoring 44 goals across the season, that is a very hard pill to swallow indeed.

Even the German Super Cup slipped through his hands at the start of the season. They went out of the German Cup in the second against a bunch of part-timers in the third division. 

Then Bayer Leverkusen - who might very well end the season unbeaten - emerged to produce one of the most astonishing stories in recent football history. 

But after scoring in the first leg, he was hooked with five minutes to go - due to a back injury - much to the astonishment of fans who pointed out his workmanlike qualities to help grind out results, given that Bayern were winning 1-0 at the time of his withdrawal.

The thing is, you can only point to bad luck, curses and external factors for so long before you start to dig deeper. Is this so called 'curse' partially self inflicted?

Kane has scored 340 goals during his club career, plus 62 for England. He's broken countless records for Tottenham and the Three Lions and is the highest goalscorer of all time for both teams.

But when it comes to these significant games - like the championship rounds of a world title boxing fight - he hasn't delivered, let's face it. 

These are the games that crave the man for the big occasion. Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Karim Benzema, Kylian Mbappe. These are all players who step up when their team needs them and you can't say Kane does that in these moments.

It's fine scoring 44 goals in 45 games, but those goals need to come in the pivotal moments.

He scored a penalty against Madrid in the first leg of the Champions League semi-final and assisted Alphonso Davies' second goal in the return leg, but his record across every 'defining' game he's played in suggests he doesn't do enough. 

Stretching back to 2015, Kane has managed just four goals and two assists in all 18 matches where he's either featured in a semi-final or a final, for both club and country, per Stats Perform.

That includes five finals and 13 semi-finals. He has never made a goal contribution in a final itself. 

The goal he scored against Real Madrid last week was his first goal during a semi-final for a club team since 2019.

He scored a penalty for England to win their Euro 2020 semi-final clash against Denmark, but then fired a blank in the final against Italy, which the Italians won on penalties.

In fact, there has only been six matches out of the 18 where Kane has contributed either a goal or an assist. For a striker who has scored a minimum of 24 goals every season since 2014-15, those numbers don't add up. 

If you asked Kane, he would not be happy with his displays in these important games and he'd be the first to tell you he demands better of himself. 

But he'd also say that his so-called trophy curse is not getting him down in the slightest. This is the same player who was turned away from Arsenal's academy, who struggled to score or even get minutes while on loan at Norwich and Leicester. 

In 2022, Kane released an inspirational video depicting him as a cartoon, charting his life as a footballer. 

It showed the player heartbroken after being released by Arsenal. His dad then puts his arm around him and says: 'We go again and work even harder. Let's see where it takes us.' That's a mantra Kane has carried with him during his career and it will apply again here. 

No one can say with any certainty that Kane will end his career with a trophy. Watching Real Madrid take their place in the final, watching Leverkusen lift the Bundesliga - these will be painful memories driving Kane on. 

He has the ability, the drive and mindset to do it. He'll just have to go again and work even harder.