On the Monday before Manchester City Women play Brondby in the Champions League last-16, Keira Walsh is pinging 25-yard diagonals on to Jane Ross’s instep. As the 19-year-old midfielder hits the striker with metronomic precision, the rest of Nick Cushing’s squad play a practice game for Wednesday night’s tie on another of the training pitches at City’s vast football academy.

There are bright skies overhead but the mood is intense as the players prepare for the final challenge of a supremely successful season. Last weekend Cushing’s side claimed the Women’s Super League title for the first time, by five points from Chelsea, completing a double after they won the Continental Tyres Cup. In the title campaign they conceded only four goals – three of which were penalties. They have lost only one game all season – the FA Cup semi-final to Chelsea – and are unbeaten for a remarkable 18 months in the league. And when taking on Brondby at the Academy Stadium, City will be Britain’s last representative in the European Cup.

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If they knock out the Danish side – the away leg is next week – City will end the year on a particular high and have a quarter-final to look forward to when the competition resumes next spring. All this is the impressive culmination of a three-year cycle that began in January 2014 when the ladies’ team was relaunched as MCWFC, became fully professional and was integrated into the City Football Group.

Their status as a bona fide part of the organisation is everywhere. Click on the club website, flick through the matchday programme for the men’s side, visit the Etihad Stadium or wander around the leafy CFA and images of Steph Houghton’s team are as prominent as those of Pep Guardiola and company.

“I think Pep Guardiola’s watched us train, Vincent Kompany [the club captain] has been to a few of our games – there is a general feeling that we are in touch with the men’s team if we need to, or if we need a bit of help with coaching then it feels like we’re one family,” Walsh says.

The CFG’s pursuit of excellence which drives City men, the academy sides, New York City and Melbourne City (other clubs in the group) is evident in the on-field performance and ethos espoused by Cushing, Houghton and Walsh, a teenager of striking maturity.

This is City’s debut tilt at the Champions League and Walsh, asked if she can dream about winning the trophy, says: “That would be nice but as a team we like to take each game as it comes. At a club like this the sky is the limit. They have all the resources, all the coaching that you need.”

Walsh, who is from Rochdale and was formerly at Blackburn Rovers, joined in 2014, as did Houghton, who came from Arsenal. The central defender decided to leave the London club despite winning the 2010 FA Cup, then the treble of all domestic trophies the following season, the inaugural year of the WSL.

Houghton, the City and England captain, is clear why she signed. “To improve myself as a footballer and a person,” she says. “In footballing terms I’m on the ball every single day, I’ve been able to learn my position inside and out, with or without the ball. Defensively I’ve learned a lot over the past three years. And off the pitch I’ve had to really mature as a leader and I feel I’ve got the right people at this club to do that.”

City’s winning total of 42 points is the highest since the start of the WSL, in which Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea are also professional. Of the success under Cushing, Houghton says: “It won’t sink in until we’re away from CFA and have a few weeks off. This season we wanted to win the league – because we came so close last year [finishing second].

“To say it’s a successful season is a bit of an understatement. The way we won the league – we were favourites from the first few weeks, the amount of clean sheets we’ve kept, the run we’ve been on: it’s a massive credit to this club because we’ve done things properly, and we wanted to be successful, and to be a part of that has been unbelievable.”

The aim now is to finish the campaign by beating Brondby and progressing in the Champions League. Cushing illustrates the drive for perfection when speaking about their opponents.

He says: “We drew Brondby and they’re a very difficult team but part of me wanted to play the best team – Lyon, the champions – just to see where we’re at, because we’re undefeated. Then, at the end of 2016 win or lose we’ll know what we have to do to go to the next level.”

Cushing’s side play the expansive style that forms the base of the CFG playing ethos. And he believes this aids another key aim: to help grow the women’s game. “I’m well aware there’s a perception of women’s football,” he says. “I have a lot of questions about: ‘Why did I move from the boys’ academy into the women’s team?’ My thought process is that if we’re going to grow Manchester City Women and if we’re going to get the crowds in and get some of the 55 to 65,000 that are in our men’s stadium to watch us, we’ve got to play attractive football.”

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Cushing, who began as a volunteer for the under-fours on Sunday mornings at the old Platt Lane training ground, sees his side as standard bearers. “The whole thing has been around trying to challenge that perception in every way: how we play, in our appearance, behaviour off the pitch, the way the girls are on Twitter – we have to be seen to be professional footballers.

“My opinion of how we grow the game is to play good football. We played Bristol in our first ever home game [in 2014] and the club managed to get 2,500 fans in, which was remarkable, and we were appalling. We lost the game 2-0 and we had 400 in for the next game. Whereas this year we’ve gone from 1,000, to 1,500, 2,000, 2,500 – we’ve had 3,500 – so it’s because they enjoy what they see, I believe.”

City have the highest average attendance of 2,400, a 50% increase on last year. While the club will not put a price on its investment over the past three years, no expense has been spared, as would be expected given the riches of its billionaire owner, Sheikh Mansour. Yet, as Cushing points out, money is never the whole reason for success.

“I get frustrated because I see the things on social media and people outside saying this club just buys what it wants. If we did that we’d probably have won the Premier League in our first year. It takes time and hard work and good people – you can’t buy anything. What you can do is spend money intelligently on good people and facilities because that gives you the best and greatest chance of being successful.”

As with Houghton and Walsh, Cushing cannot wait to face Brondby, a semi-professional side. “My senses will tingle on Wednesday night – Champions League nights do have a different feel,” he says. “I’m a realist – we can win it this year. But because we have no experience we’ll have to be the best we can be in every game.

Even the vastly experienced Houghton is daring to dream. “To win the Champions League? That would be amazing – yes,” the 28-year-old says.