De Bruyne believes Champions League triumph would ‘change narrative’ for Manchester City

A Champions League win would “change the perspective” in terms of how Manchester City are regarded, according to Kevin De Bruyne.

The Premier League champions are chasing their first-ever Champions League trophy with their semi-final second leg against Real Madrid taking place on Wednesday.

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City have won 13 major trophies since 2011 but glory in Europe’s elite club competition has eluded them. They made their maiden final last year when they were defeated 1-0 by Chelsea.

De Bruyne told a press conference ahead of Wednesday’s match in Madrid: “I think it (winning the competition) would change the perspective from outside.

“Obviously as a player you want to win the trophies, and you want to win this one. But I think the fact we’ve been fighting for numerous years and getting to the latter stages means that 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’s 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 obviously we didn’t win it, and I think winning it would just change that little narrative.”

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The Belgium midfielder added: “I think we are in a very good way. Obviously the fact that we’ve not won it yet, I think that will probably be the only criticism we can get.

“I think for the rest, 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