Manchester City are looking to use last year's final heartbreak to spur them on this season and claim Champions League glory.
They are as good as in to the last eight after sealing a sensational 5-0 first-leg win at Sporting Lisbon on Tuesday night.
Records continue to tumble as Pep Guardiola's team became the first side to be four goals up at half-time in a knockout tie.
The Champions League remains the one trophy that has eluded City ever since the riches arrived, whilst Guardiola himself is without a triumph in over a decade.
Both those statements seem barely fathomable and could've changed last summer had the English champions got over the line against Chelsea in Porto.
Instead City, who fielded an XI that surprised many, were undone by Chelsea and Kai Havertz.
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It was their first ever final appearance but they are, again, many people's pick to lift the European Cup this term.
They came through a challenging group that featured PSG and RB Leipzig but there is no shortage of credible winning candidates still in the competition.
City have the added motivation of wanting to go one better though, which has served as a powerful influence in the past.
Liverpool's redemption
Only three teams have ever lost the Champions League final and returned 12 months later to win it.
Liverpool are the most recent of those having won it in 2019.
The Reds saw off Tottenham in Madrid nearly three years ago having narrowly missed out in an epic title battle to City.
En route to their continental success they beat the likes of Bayern Munich and Barcelona.
But they had faced the agonising pain of falling 90 minutes short of glory in 2018 when Real Madrid came out on top.
The bitter pill no doubt harder to swallow given the controversial circumstances in which Mo Salah was forced off in the first-half, having clashed with Sergio Ramos.
Gareth Bale, the two-goal hero in the 3-1 win, also saw his speculative long range effort spill straight through Loris Karius' hands with seven minutes remaining.
Defeat was tough to take, but buoyed by new signings that summer, which included a No 1 in Alisson, the Reds returned to right the wrongs of Kiev.
City, for many years now compared to Liverpool, will want to emulate the achievements of their domestic rivals.
The pair could yet be involved in another Premier League title race whilst they are among the favourites to rule Europe.
A missing piece
The lack of a Champions League in the trophy cabinet at the Ethiad is well documented.
Since the 2017/18 season Guardiola has led City to three league titles, four Carabao Cups and an FA Cup.
In the same time period Liverpool have a league title and no domestic cups.
But, crucially, they do have the prestige of calling themselves European champions.
Their list of honours against City may not stack up, but that Champions League success stands out - something Liverpool star Trent Alexander-Arnold was all too happy to point out ahead of his team's clash with Inter Milan.
He said: “Not making any digs but you look at Man City’s amazing team and they haven’t been able to lift the Champions League.
"They won a couple of Prems but haven’t been able to win the Champions League.
"We’ve won both over the last few years and it shows you we can do it in both competitions."
City's rare feat
If City were to respond to Alexander-Arnold's and become the fourth English team to win the Champions League then they will have to respond like champions.
As mentioned, Liverpool responded to final heartache by returning the next year and going one better.
That was also the case with Bayern Munich at Wembley in 2013. They saw off Borussia Dortmund, then led by Jurgen Klopp.
12 months earlier they had been beaten by Chelsea in their own stadium on penalties despite dominating the occasion.
"You don't want the stamp of a loser," said Arjen Robben, Bayern's match winner in 2013.
"It wasn't so much pressure. I tried to make it into positive energy. I couldn't start thinking negatively, otherwise it would be too difficult."
The other team to do so was AC Milan way back in 1994.
A year earlier they had been beaten by Marseille, still the only French winners of the competition, but then responded the following year by beating Barcelona.
The Catalans were under the leadership of Johan Cruyff but were humiliated 4-0 in Athens by the Italian side.
Near misses
For all their domestic dominance the Champions League has served as an annual dose of pain for those on the blue half of Manchester.
Their exits never seem to come as a result of being outplayed; there's always a subplot. A what if moment.
Liverpool dumped them out in 2018 but, in the second-leg at the Etihad, City had a goal ruled out that would've made it 2-0 on the night, 3-2 on aggregate.
Instead the Reds would run away with it, winning 5-1 across the two games.
A year later a spirited comeback looked as if it would see off Tottenham, that was until Fernando Llorente scored a crucial away goal.
In stoppage time Raheem Sterling thought he'd completed his hat-trick and sent his side through, only for VAR to rule on the slightest of offside calls.
A year later and it was Lyon who were getting the better of the English side.
VAR, contentious refereeing decisions and barely believable missed chances all contributed to City's exit that night.
