Euro win would be ‘game changer’
KEVIN De Bruyne believes Manchester City winning the Champions League would “change the perspective” in terms of how the club are regarded.
City have won 13 major trophies since 2011 but have not tasted glory in Europe’s elite club competition.
They were beaten semi-finalists in 2015-16 and after three successive quarter-final exits last year reached their maiden Champions League final, in which they were defeated 1-0 by Chelsea.
They head into tonight’s semifinal second leg at Real Madrid leading the tie 4-3 and De Bruyne told a press conference ahead of the match: “I think winning the competition would change the perspective from outside.
“As a player you want to win the trophies and you want to win this one. I think the fact we’ve been fighting for numerous years and getting to the latter stages means we’ve been doing really well.
“It’s a cup competition and the quality is very high so it’s very, very difficult to win it and there are different circumstances that happen.
“I think in the end if you look back at the way we performed, or I performed over seven years with the team, we did really well but we didn’t win it, and I think winning it would just change that narrative.”
The Belgium midfielder added: “I think we are in a very good way. The fact that we’ve not won it yet, I think that will probably be the only criticism we can get.
“We’ve been there loads of times and we’ve been always fighting to win this competition.
“So the consistency we have as a club has been amazing, I think pretty much as good as anybody else - but we just need to try to get over the line.”