Champions League win would ‘change the perspective’ of Man City, says De Bruyne

De Bruyne opened the scoring in City’s thrilling 4-3 first-leg win over Carlo Ancelotti’s team at the Etihad Stadium last week, but Karim Benzema’s double means the encounter remains in the balance.

The Belgium international has won 10 domestic trophies since joining the club in 2015, though European success has so far evaded Guardiola’s men, who lost last season’s final to 1-0 to Chelsea.

Before travelling to the Santiago Bernabeu for Wednesday’s second leg, the in-form playmaker, who has contributed 15 goals and 12 assists in all competitions this term, acknowledged a European title would alter the way the club is viewed.

“It would change the perspective,” De Bruyne, who went off injured in last year’s final, said at a pre-match news conference. “As a player, you want to win trophies, and we want this one.

“We have fought for it for numerous years and been to the latter stages, and we have been doing well.

“Obviously, it’s a cup competition and the quality is really high, so it’s very difficult to win it and there are different circumstances, but if you look at how we have performed in the last seven years, we’ve done really well. If we win it, it would change the narrative.”

However, De Bruyne refuted claims that the team needed to win the competition, highlighting the quality of City’s competitors and saying he was happy with his own accomplishments.

“For myself. It doesn’t change how I look at myself as a player. I know what I have done: good and bad in my career. I’m pretty happy with what I have done,” he added.

“Obviously, I want to win every trophy but that’s a hard task. I would obviously love to win the Champions League.”

De Bruyne has registered 18 Champions League assists since making his first City appearance in the competition in September 2015, a tally that is only bettered by Neymar (25) and Kylian Mbappe (20) during that time.

Meanwhile, City’s first-leg success over Los Blancos was only the second semi-final first leg in Champions League history to see seven goals scored (along with Liverpool 5-2 Roma in 2017-18), but the midfielder said his team would need to be at their best to make their advantage count.

“I think if we play the way we played last week, we have the potential to be one of the best teams, but we have to show that,” he added. “If we play below that, Madrid can win because they are also one of the best teams, and the quality they have is amazing.

“But I back my team to perform at the high level needed to win the game. I think we are in a very good way. The fact we have not won it yet is the only criticism we can get. The rest, we have been there loads of times, fighting to win it.

“I remember when we played [against Madrid in the 2015-16 semi-finals] it wasn’t the greatest end to the season. Madrid was a powerhouse at that time. We are in better shape now. I think we are a better team with a better set-up, we play better, and we have more experience. Hopefully, we are better prepared.

“It’s two attacking teams who like to play football. We played a very good game [last week] but that’s in the past. We have a different game ahead of us tomorrow and it starts back to 0-0 so we need our A-game to win.”

City have won their last three Champions League matches against Los Blancos – only two sides have ever won four in a row against them in European competitions, with Ajax doing so between 1973 and 1995 and Bayern Munich replicating that achievement between 2000 and 2002.

REUTERS