Vincent Kompany is one of the most honest performers in football and in looking forward to Sunday’s Wembley final he does not even attempt to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes. “Many people will see Liverpool as favourites,” the Manchester City captain says, matter of factly. “They are a good team, they have beaten us the last two times we have met and with all their strikers back they have great firepower. It’s a 50-50 game, and to be honest I prefer that. When you go to Wembley you want to be up against a team like Liverpool. We will have to rise to the challenge, to be at our best to win, and that’s how it should be. I always remember playing Wigan in the FA Cup final when everyone expected us to win easily. We didn’t and it was a big shock.”

Kompany does not necessarily expect today’s game to follow the pattern of November’s 4-1 hiding at the Etihad, though he is fairly sure Liverpool will once again produce their A game. “Every time we play Liverpool they always seem to be at their best,” he says. “I don’t know why, but everything seems to come together for them when they play us.

“This is a test for us, we all know that. We are going to have to show how good we actually are. But at least we won’t be making the mistake of expecting an easy game. There are no easy games at Wembley, Wigan taught us that, and in a way it is better to be facing a team that you know can beat you.

“If we had already beaten them twice in the league we might relax a little bit, and that would be dangerous. People are saying this final is difficult to predict and I like that. You don’t want to be taking cup finals for granted.”

It seems odd that a City player should be saying that, when, until relatively recently, Manchester United supporters on the Stretford End used to keep a total of the years running into decades since their rivals won anything. The Belgian defender is synonymous with new City, successful City, but he knows all about the bad old days, too.

“People see us as a new club,” he says. “Globally it is obvious that people only look at the last six or seven years, but I talk to supporters and this is a club that will never forget where it has been. When I came to City the club was not in a great place, and it hadn’t won anything since 1976. At that time the Wembley game everybody talked about was the one against Gillingham. Winning a Second Division play-off was the biggest thing many of our fans had ever seen. I am not dismissing the importance of that game either, because it is a big part of who we are and where we have come from. It is easy to talk about the good times, but it is the bad times that make you strong. Our fans have been through things that supporters of other clubs would have nightmares about.”

Clearly it is not only cup finals that Kompany refuses to take for granted. He is glad to have arrived at City at the right time and is enormously honoured to be captain, but understands he is only a small part of the club’s rich backstory. “Myself, Pablo Zabaleta and Joe Hart were lucky to be here for the rebirth of the club,” he says. “We all love the place and we have grown with each other and the team.

“The first time we qualified for the Champions League was an unbelievable satisfaction, then we won the FA Cup, then the Premier League. In the last few years City fans have lived their dreams. They are now supporting a club that expects to win things every single year and is disappointed when it doesn’t happen.”

Kompany is aware that City’s financial backing is the envy of most other clubs, but results still have to be achieved on the pitch and the club’s traditions maintained. “Winning silverware is an absolute must for us now because of the investment that has been made, but it isn’t just winning trophies that makes you a great club,” he says.

“I really believe that. Manchester City isn’t new, it’s an old club with a lot of history. The players we have now will always be remembered for winning things, but what others have done for the club is just as important. People like Paul Dickov and Shaun Goater will never be forgotten and go back a few more years and you get to Mike Summerbee, Tony Book and Colin Bell. Our success doesn’t put those guys in the shadows – if anything it gives them an even more prominent place.”

Kompany turns 30 in just over a month and is aware that it will soon be his own turn to hand on the baton to someone else, but not for a few years yet. “I am far too ambitious to stop now. I want to win much more,” he says.

“The next City captain will overshadow everything I’ve done or will do because this club is going to achieve seriously great things. No matter what comes in the future it will have been built on the platform we left behind and I am happy about that. I will take great pride in the future in the knowledge that I was there when the transformation started.”

Before Pep Guardiola succeeds Manuel Pellegrini and attempts to take the club to an as yet undreamt of next level, however, Kompany feels City are already on their way to emulating Sunday’s opponents. “In the recent past, when a player signed for Liverpool or Manchester United they would talk about how much they loved the club when they were a kid,” he says. “That never used to happen so much with City. It was usually claimed or assumed he had signed for different reasons. Maybe that was the case once, but I am happy to say it is changing now. So many of the kids in our academy are local lads, Mancunians and City fans who want to be at the club for emotional as well as professional reasons. That’s great. It is always much more satisfying to be playing for a club you love, rather than being somewhere just because it’s your job.”