Manchester City have slowly, and with more confidence, changed their tune regarding the Champions League throughout this season - and the reaction to Saturday's FA Cup win completed the transformation in attitude.
As they stand 90 minutes from their first-ever Champions League title, Pep Guardiola and his players have spent years insisting that the European Cup won't define them. That anything can happen in Europe - as City know all too well - and they will be remembered as a great team regardless of whether they lift that famous cup or not.
Now, City players and Guardiola are not afraid to put the pressure on themselves by saying: 'We need to win the Champions League'. It was the main thing on their minds after sending Manchester United back up north without the cup.
ALSO READ: 'Never again' Pep Guardiola has a bigger focus than Treble for Man City
In the build-up to the Champions League clashes with Bayern Munich and Real Madrid, Guardiola said on multiple occasions that the City organisation both demand and need the trophy to complete their project over the last decade or so. They have conquered England - as this weekend's domestic double underlined - but have found more inventive ways to exit the Champions League with every passing year.
This season, though, feels different, as City have been ruthless in dispatching the two most likely rivals for the competition in Bayern Munich and Real Madrid, as well as putting seven past RB Leipzig. Throughout the run, the message from the City dressing room has increasingly made it clear that this group - and this club - should be winning the Champions League. If they don't they are accepting that they haven't reached the heights they should have done.
Even after beating Manchester United at Wembley on Saturday to lift the FA Cup and secure a second domestic double in five years, Guardiola almost brushed off that achievement and spoke of the Champions League. He said he wouldn't entertain talk of a treble until it was 90 minutes away, and now it is, he gave an insight into his mindset.
While winning the Champions League will secure the treble, Guardiola is more concerned with the achievement of winning the trophy in Istanbul next week. If it secures the treble, then that's a bonus.
"More than the fact for the treble is the fact to win the Champions League," he said. "We won already the FA Cup, we won the Premier League.
"Everybody knows it. We have done incredible seasons – five Premier Leagues, two FA Cups, Carabao Cups, but we have to win the Champions League to be recognised like the team deserves to be recognised.
"We have to admit it, without the Champions League – it has been amazing, it has been fun – but we are missing (something). We have to do it.
"We give more and more credit for what we have done these years, we have done many things, but I said to the players 'you have to put the pressure on yourself, to be recognised as something good you have to win Europe'."
Some may accuse City of becoming 'bored' of winning - and while fans will adamantly tell you differently, Guardiola's comments do back up that flawed theory. His tears as Ilkay Gundogan lifted the cup at Wembley suggest different, though.
If City do return from Turkey without the Champions League, then this season will be far from a failure. They have played incredible football, transformed their tactics multiple times, and secured a double that no other team has done since 2010. Only United and Arsenal have done it three times in their history - City have two in five years. That will be worth celebrating.
Guardiola will give his players another two days off before reconvening for the Champions League final, and Ruben Dias had promised to party during that time to celebrate the cup win. Then, there will be full focus on Istanbul, with many players seen repeating the message of 'one more game' on Saturday.
After that, if City can use the pressure they have put on themselves to secure the Champions League, then the parties that follow will last far longer than just 48 hours.
READ NEXT:
