Kevin De Bruyne has admitted Manchester City must win the Champions League to be viewed as an elite club.
City, who lost last year's final to Chelsea, lead Real Madrid 4-3 going into Wednesday's semi-final second leg at the Bernabeu. The City playmaker acknowledged there will always be a question mark against Pep Guardiola's side until they manage to be crowned European champions.
"I think it would change the perspective from outside," said De Bruyne. "As a player, you want to win trophies and we want to win this one. 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 difficult to win it but, in the end, if you look back at the way we performed and I have performed over seven years, we have done really well. We have not won it but winning it would change that little narrative.
"We are in a very good way. We've not won it yet and that will probably be the only criticism we can get. For the rest, we've been there loads of times and always fighting to win this competition so the consistency that we've had has been amazing, pretty much as good as everybody else.
"We just need to try to get over the line. Tomorrow is another step. For myself, I don't think it changes the perspective that I look at myself as a player. I've known what I've done good and bad in my career and I'm pretty happy with what I've done. I want to win every trophy that I can get but that's a hard task. I would obviously love to win the Champions League also.
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Luka Modric said Real Madrid must show they are the best team in the world to beat City, but De Bruyne reckons City can be worthy of that status if they play to their full potential. "If we play the way that we played last week then we have the potential to be one of the best teams, but we have to do that tomorrow night," said De Bruyne.
"If we are a little bit below that there is the possibility that Madrid can win this game, because they are also one of the best teams in the world and the quality they have is amazing.
"But I back my team to perform at the level that is necessary to win that game tomorrow. Everybody wants to see the game and is anticipating a great game. We will try to get the best out of ourselves to do a good showing and hopefully progress to Paris."
