​Manchester City boss Manuel Pellegrini is convinced his side is ready to conquer Europe's premier competition and win the Champions League.





Ahead of Wednesday’s tie with Borussia Monchengladbach, the Chilean claims City are destined to win the competition with a squad to compare with Barcelona’s current champions.





Pellegrini defended his record in the competition, whilst pointing out that even Sir Alex Ferguson only managed two Champions League triumphs during his 26-year Manchester United reign.





“History is good, but you don’t win things because you have history,” he said in the ​Manchester Evening News.





“For me, what is important is the future. Not the past.





“I am sure that Manchester City will win the Champions League in the future because the whole club works well."





“But being champions of Europe must not be an obsession here.





“Manchester United, in the whole period of Sir Alex Ferguson, when he was the best manager in the club’s history, only won the Champions League twice in 26 years.





“Even Barcelona had to wait 30 years. Real Madrid won many European titles in the beginning and then had to wait 28 or 29 years.





“Being a strong team is Europe must be our target, but not at the expense of the Premier League.”









City have been knocked out by Barca in the last 16 in each of Pellegrini’s first two seasons at the Etihad, but the Chilean refuses to accept that defeat to the Catalan giants represents failure.





“This is a very young team compared with Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich or Juventus,” he said.





“We are younger than the teams who normally win the Champions League over the last 10 years. Our team has only arrived in the last few years and we are improving every season."









“That will continue and I am absolutely sure that we will arrive to be an important team that wins the Champions League.





“I hope that this year we will be luckier with the draw. One day we are going to be a strong team, like Barcelona are today.”





Pellegrini is confident that his side can recover from defeat to Juventus in their opening game in this year’s competition.









“The first season we beat Bayern Munich and lost against Real Madrid in the group stages and qualified with 15 points,” he said. “Last year was exactly the same.





“In this case, we lost against Juventus here, but we played better than Juventus. We lost just three points, now we must fight for the other 15 points and see if we qualify or not."





"I’m absolutely trusting that we are going to do it because we did it the last two seasons after losing the first game.”



