Kyle Walker says Manchester City's players owe it to owner Sheikh Mansour to win the Champions League for the first time and follow in the footsteps of Manchester United.
City go into Wednesday night's semi-final second leg against Real Madrid level at 1-1, with defender Walker saying Sheikh Mansour deserves European glory after his £2billion-plus outlay since 2008. City have won 17 trophies since that takeover, but none in Europe.
Walker also said Pep Guardiola's side need to lift the European Cup to be talked about in the same breath as local rivals Manchester United, who have won it three times.
"You have to just look over the road at Manchester United and what they've accomplished over a number of years," said Walker.
"When you get compared to that team, they've won countless titles. We've done five in six years, hopefully six in seven if we can cross the line on this one, which still isn’t over by the way [City have actually won the Premier League title four times in five years].
"But the club is missing this one and the owners - and the amount of money they've pumped into this club and the investment they've made - we owe that to them. To get to the [2021] Champions League final against Chelsea and not perform as well as we can, we owe that to ourselves as well, to get some revenge for ourselves.
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"We know that was below par on that day. But we have a tough opponent to get past to get to the final and, in a final, anything can happen. But the first thing is getting past Real Madrid and then let's see about the final."
City have come close to winning the Champions League in recent years. They lost 1-0 to Chelsea in the 2021 final and were knocked out by Real Madrid in the semi-finals of last year's tournament, where they blew a two-goal lead in added time.
City are aiming to become just the second team in history to win the Premier League, Champions League and FA Cup in the same season. The only other club to achieve that are Man Utd, who did so under Sir Alex Ferguson 24 years ago.
Guardiola added: "This is one of the most important games since I've been here, we cannot deny that. I've told the players to enjoy it. We must feel incredibly lucky to be here. It's in our hands and we just need to win one game to reach the final."
The winners of City's game with Real Madrid will be the red hot favourites to win the final in Istanbul on June 10. The other tie is being contested between AC Milan and Inter Milan, with the latter club boasting a two-goal ahead of the second leg on Tuesday night.
City will be close to full-strength for the second leg, with Nathan Ake the only player missing through injury, while Real boss Carlo Ancelotti is also able to field his strongest side.
