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Despite recent Premier League success, Manchester City continue to be outsiders at the Champions League

A few weeks back, I drank coffee and ate eggs and bacon with a group of ex-pat Glasgow Celtic supporters in a Montreal bar. After they watched their team dispatch Dundee in a Scottish Cup clash, we swapped stories. They told me of the logistical issues when first arriving in Canada. How when the snow fell, it disrupted the radio frequencies and the fuzzy, crackly long-distance commentary of whatever Celtic game they were intently listening to at the time would suddenly be suspended. In desperation, they'd jump on the roof, dust off the white stuff, clasp their hands together in solemn prayer and plead with the soccer gods to have mercy.

You often hear of “the big European nights”, those evenings that fans remember from the 1960s and 1970s, when along with their fathers or older brothers, they nestled deep in the terraces and gazed at their favourite British soccer team as they did battle against an exotic heavyweight. Under the midweek floodlights, memories were made. It was an intoxicating antidote to the humdrum nature of the usual weekend fare. Even for those folks not in attendance, there was tradition. The television showed highlights, radio had extensive coverage. You got to stay up past your bedtime because your team was playing. In the dull grey of British life, European soccer was an event, a flash of brilliant technicolour.

Not for Manchester City though. Before 2012, their only foray into Europe's elite competition came in the late '60s and ended at the first hurdle. Crowned English champions a few months before, they drew 0-0 with Turkish side Fenerbache at Maine Road and lost the second leg 2-1. Some minor success came in 1970 with victory in the Cup Winners' Cup but the club, unlike its bitter local rivals, has never had a storied love affair with European competition – mainly because they've spent so much of the last 50 years struggling to stay relevant.

Ahead of Tuesday's clash with Barcelona, the topic of City's frigid relationship with the UEFA Champions League has cropped up again. During Monday's press conference, Samir Nasri was asked whether the club's fans cared more for the Premier League.

“Yeah, I think so. Because we have a lot of success in the Premier League, so the fans are really passionate about that.”

There is an element of truth to Nasri's words. Success hasn't come as easy to City when faced with Europe's best. Last season, when they finally managed to wriggle free of the group stages and reach the knockout round, Barca easily swept them aside. For a team that had become so used to winning things in recent seasons, the repeated Champions League setbacks were inconvenient, a nuisance. But, in a competition built on tradition and history, City's failures made perfect sense.

Manchester City - Barcelona Preview: Pellegrini's men seek revenge against wounded Catalans
Manchester City - Barcelona Preview: Pellegrini's men seek revenge against wounded Catalans

Last September, fresh from a domestic title and with new-found optimism ahead of another Champions League campaign, City welcomed high-profile Italian side Roma for a group-stage opener. The game wasn't even a sell-out. In October, they offered a “buy one, get one free” ticket deal for a clash with Russian side CSKA Moscow. For the club and its fans, the tournament is a slog, too much like hard work. More importantly though, where City have gained the interest of the general, hysterical English soccer community through their lavish spending and subsequent Premier League wins, they remain outsiders at Europe's top table.

In May of last year, City were fined $75 million and had squad restrictions put in place after falling foul of UEFA's Financial Fair Play regulations. It was a warning shot – also delivered to nouveau-rich French club Paris St-Germain – that sent a clear message. Though City were loud, brash and splashing cash, they were the uninvited guest at a prestigious party.

But City and their owners care not for acceptance. Their goal is to be an international brand, with various branches strewn across the globe. One wonders whether or not they care for Champions League success. One wonders whether the fantasy has already been fulfilled and that when the club so memorably and famously claimed that first Premier League win in 2012, it was the zenith, a feeling never to be replicated. For it tapped into memories of generations before – the domestic triumphs tasted in the late 1960s and early 1980s that so many supporters thought they'd never see again.

And that's what City continuously battle in the Champions League. As much as there's the pressure to perform, get results and stay in the competition, there's the burden of having to create something from scratch. Fans can't relate to City taking on the finest European clubs because it's new, unusual and, so far, unsuccessful. It's why the stadium isn't always full and why there's a lack of electricity, energy and interest during games.

“In the Champions League, we need to create our history,” said Nasri on Monday.

It's a neat line but a damning statement to make. Because unlike English soccer, a league that recently sold its television rights for $7.7 billion, there's a prestige to the Champions League. It rewards sustained excellence. A quick glance at the honour roll will tell you that the most successful sides are the experienced hands and that the novices are nowhere to be seen.

If Manchester City are serious about the Champions League, it can't merely be an afterthought. This is different. Here, unlike in other places, success isn't gleaned overnight.