Midfielder Kevin De Bruyne says Manchester City will be called failures if they don’t win the Champions League this season.

City face Real Madrid in the first leg of their last-16 tie at the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu on Wednesday. They then host Madrid at the Etihad Stadium in the return leg on 17 March.

With the Premier League title race seemingly over, Man City may need to achieve victory in Europe for this campaign to be regarded as successful. This despite the fact they are into the fifth round of the FA Cup and face Aston Villa in the Carabao Cup final on Sunday.

‘If we don’t win it [the Champions League] everybody is going to say we are failures like the last five years!’ De Bruyne told Goal.

‘It’s something we’ve not won yet. We always want to win everything but sometimes another team is better or performing well – like Liverpool are doing this season.

‘It’s just that way and you just have to admit it. But we will just go there to win that game. You can’t look too much forward and see what’s going to happen.’

The closest City have come to winning the competition was in 2016 when they reached the semi-finals under manager Manuel Pellegrini. That year they were beaten by Madrid in the last four, who went on to win it for the 11th time in their history.

It was also the beginning of three successive trophies for the club under the guidance of Zinedine Zidane – who is now back in charge after 10 months away.

Since Pep Guardiola became boss, succeeding Pellegrini in the summer of 2016, the furthest City have gone is the quarter-finals.