How many times have Manchester City reached a Champions League semi-final?
Ahead of City's quarter-final tie against Bundesliga giants Borussia Dortmund, a look back at the 'Citizen's' progress in European football's major club competition.
Many younger football fans will automatically associate the name of Manchester City with the Champions League, but the sky-blue side of Manchester progressing to the latter stage of European football's premium competition is a recent phenomenon.
Before the 2011/12 season, Manchester City had only participated once in UEFA's top club competition once, that was back in the 1968/69 season after their previous English First Division win the previous season. Their European adventure was a brief one however with a first round elimination at the hands of Turkish champions Feberbahce on an 2-1 aggregate scoreline.
1970 Euro glory
This disappointing European sojourn was rectified the following year after the Mancunian side qualified for the UEFA European Cup Winners Cup (a now defunct competition featuring the cup winners from across Europe). After eliminating Athletic Club, Portugal's Academica, Leirse and Schalke 04 on their way to the final, Joe Mercer's side faced Polish outfit Gornik Zabrze in the final. After a 2-2 aggregate scorline after two legs, City eventually secured their first, and to date only European trophy in a 3-1 play-off match.
Champions League era
Since the 2011/12 season, City have never failed to not qualify for the group stage of the UEFA Champions League and despite domestic dominance in the Premier League, only in the 2015/16 season did the Sky-blues get close to major European glory in reaching the semi-final of the competition.
Managed by current Betis manager Manuel Pellegrini at the time, City faced Real Madrid in the two legged semi-final with a tense 0-0 in Manchester in the first leg.
A packed Bernabéu witnessed a 1-0 home win for Real Madrid with a Fernando o.g in the 20th minute deciding the tie in a game where City showed limited attacking ambition with a certain Noel Gallagher watching on from the VIP area of the ground.
This season's Pep Guardiola Manchester City will be looking to write another chapter in the City history books and navigate the quarter-final against Dortmund before facing the winners of PSG-Bayern in what could be a mouth-watering semi-final contest. With the Premier League title as good as in the bag, City now have their eyes firmly set on a May Istanbul final with fans dreaming of adding to their 1970 trophy.