Harry Kane played five minutes for Leyton Orient against Plymouth the last time Tottenham visited Real Madrid... now he's leading the line in the Bernabeu

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On the same night Tottenham Hotspur last visited Real Madrid's Estadio Santiago Bernabeu, 17-year-old Harry Kane appeared as a late substitute for Leyton Orient in League One.

Six-and-a-half years later, the very same player is not only feared by the Spanish champions ahead of Tuesday night's Champions League clash – they'd also like to sign him.

Even by football's fickle standards, the ascent of Kane is astonishing. While Gareth Bale and Luka Modric were all the rage at White Hart Lane in April 2011, he was sent to Brisbane Road for the first of four different loan spells; not all of them successful.

Harry Kane warms up during a training session at the Bernabeu on Monday evening

The last time Spurs visited Real Madrid, Kane played five minutes for Leyton Orient 

Contrast that with his current reputation today. Fifteen goals in his past 11 matches for club and country puts him in the statistical bracket of Messi and Ronaldo. When someone as decorated as Zinedine Zidane proclaims: 'He is very good in every aspect', you know you've made it.

What makes Kane's story particularly impressive is that he was no overnight success, nor tipped for superstardom as a teenager like a Wayne Rooney.

Former Spurs midfielder Jermaine Jenas, at the club when Kane was starting out, has been frank enough to admit: 'Harry's progress to this level has been one of the biggest shocks of my football career.

The striker has become one of the club's top assets, to the surprise of some pundits

'There were others you'd have put ahead of Harry at that time; Ryan Mason because he had this flair about him. Andros Townsend, Dean Parrett, there were a few coming through.'

In retrospect, Kane's time at Orient, Millwall, Norwich and Leicester did him good. By the time, Mauricio Pochettino gave him a chance in the Spurs first-team – initially in the Europa League, then the Premier League – he had experience of highs and lows.

Apart from in the month of August, he hasn't stopped scoring. On their last visit to the Bernabeu, Spurs were hammered 4-0 in a Champions League quarter-final and Modric and Bale both ended up joining the Spanish giants.

Kane, an 85th-minute sub for Scott McGleish in a 2-0 win against Plymouth the same evening, will hope Spurs gain a better result against Real than they did on April 5, 2011.

And Spurs will hope the tradition of losing their best players has also stopped.

Kane had loan spells at several EFL clubs before he made the breakthrough at Tottenham

THE HARRY KANE TEAMS 

LEYTON ORIENT (2011)

18 games, five goals

Kane's first experience of senior football at the age of 17, he started with a run of five goals in eight matches but then failed to score again after that, with half of his appearances coming as substitute.

Orient were involved in a battle for League One play-offs giving the youngster a real sense of competitive matches. His most memorable game was a 2-2 draw at Huddersfield where he scored with a header and was then sent off for a second bookable offence.

Kane goes to ground under the challenge of George Boyd during a game against Peterborough

MILLWALL (2012)

27 games, nine goals

After making Tottenham's Europa League team, scoring once in six games, Kane was given a chance at Championship level – one step up from his time at Orient.

Things didn't start brightly, Millwall failed to score in his first three matches including a 6-0 drubbing at home to Birmingham City, but he then netted twice in the FA Cup against Dagenham.

A barren run of nine games without a goal followed before Kane properly found his feet, scoring seven in 14 including three in a row against Hull, Portsmouth and Leicester.

His blossoming partnership with Andy Keogh was an early indication that Kane was a selfless player who worked for the team and helped those around him.

Kane scored nine goals in 27 games during a loan spell with Millwall in 2012

NORWICH (2012-13)

Five games, no goals

Kane played four minutes in the Premier League for Spurs before being shipped out to Norwich City by manager Andre Villas Boas with the intention of giving him regular football at that level for the first time.

It didn't work out like that however. He suffered a metatarsal injury and even when fit Canaries boss Chris Hughton was under pressure to get results. Kane started just one league game, came on as sub for two others and didn't score.

His misfortune was best summed up a game against West Ham in September. Sent on with 17 minutes left to try and break the deadlock, he scuffed his chance of a late winner straight at Jussi Jaaskelainen and the game finished 0-0. In January, both clubs agreed to cut the season-long loan short.

His time at Norwich was less enjoyable, with no goals from five appearances for the Canaries

LEICESTER CITY (2013)

15 games, two goals

There is a famous picture of Kane and Jamie Vardy sat together on the Leicester bench for their play-off semi-final defeat against Watford while David Nugent and Chris Wood played in front of them.

It was another disappointing loan spell for Kane who went to Leciester for the second half of 2012-13 because it was felt The Championship was still his level. However, he failed to win a regular place under Nigel Pearson and scored only twice in almost four months at the club.

'You could see he had very good technical ability but I don't suppose anybody at that point would have seen the rise he's had,' said Pearson.

Kane celebrates one of his two goals for Leicester - in a 2013 game against Blackburn

TOTTENHAM (2009- )

Having been used very sparingly by Harry Redknapp – for whom he scored his first Spurs goal against Shamrock Rovers – and Andre Villas Boas, Kane's loan spells out stopped under Tim Sherwood and he scored four times in 19 appearances for Spurs in 2013-14.

It was a gradual burn and even the arrival of Mauricio Pochettino in the summer of 2014 didn't catapult Kane to stardom immediately.

The first quarter of Pochettino's first season saw the 21-year-old used in cup matches but rarely trusted in the Premier League where Emmanuel Adebayor and Roberto Soldado were still above him in the pecking order.

It changed on November 2, 2014 when Kane replaced Adebayor in the second half and struck a match-winning free-kick in the final minute. The following week, he earned his first Premier League start against Stoke City and ended the season with 32 goals in all competitions.

Since then, he hasn't looked back. The Premier League's leading scorer in each of the last two years, he'll be fancied to win a hat-trick of Golden Boots this season; an achievement only managed by Alan Shearer and Thierry Henry.

He scores all types of goals – headers, shots, tap-ins, long-range strikes. Tottenham's only worry given his ambitions is that he's still to lift his first team trophy.

Spurs fans will just hope being 'one of our own' will count for something if Real Madrid or Barcelona come knocking one day. 

The striker has been in sensational goalscoring form for Spurs over the past two years