Manchester City fans will be relatively familiar with Kevin De Bruyne’s temperament.
“It’s not the first time, you don’t see how many times he shouts at me on the training ground,” Pep Guardiola said last year. “This is what we need from him, because after that, he became the best.”
This was after De Bruyne had told Guardiola to “shut up” during City’s Champions League clash with Real Madrid, the kind of flare-up that the Belgian has in his locker, but which is accepted as part of his game and one that does not really cause too many issues around the club.
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His quality is not in question and he fits into the dressing room well, just not necessarily as a leader, not in a constructive sense anyway.
He had privately expressed that he did not want the captain’s armband because he would rather focus on playing than the extra responsibilities. He knows what he is good at and not so good at, and being a captain in the traditional sense — finding the right words at the right time, for example — is not really for him.
Nevertheless, he has been appointed captain of club and country in the past 18 months. “Everyone knows that I don’t beat around the bush,” he said about inheriting the Belgium armband, in a press conference before his first game as skipper in March 2023, “but any criticism I have is always with good intentions, to help everyone do better.”
That was put to the test during the European Championship this summer when, having initially gathered his team-mates to acknowledge the Belgian fans after securing qualification for the last 16, he told them to get off the pitch once he noticed that they were being greeted with boos.
And this week there has been a much more publicised row, with De Bruyne seen on television footage apparently telling Belgium sporting director Franky Vercauteren, “Ik stop” — “I quit” — three times following his country’s 2-0 defeat by France.
In a post-match television interview, he was fairly candid, too, saying that “the standard is the top level and if you are not good enough you have to give everything, and some are not doing that.”
Whereas at City he has not had too much to complain about, he has had opportunities to be brutally honest about the Belgium setup in recent years, including his pre-World Cup assessment in an interview with The Guardian that they had “no chance” of winning in Qatar because they were “too old”.
De Bruyne did not rate Belgium’s World Cup chances highly (Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)
“We have some good new players coming, but they are not at the level other players were in 2018. I see us more as outsiders.”
And so when it was put to him by Belgian television channel VTM on Monday, after the France defeat, that the team is not what it was in the days of Eden Hazard et al, he replied: “I can accept that we have dropped our level since 2018, I said this for years, but there are other things that are unacceptable.”
He had made his feelings clear in the dressing room at half-time but insisted he would not say it publicly, highlighting an increased level of restraint compared to his younger self.
“I would have told you when I was 18 playing for Genk,” he said. “I am 33 now, you can find out yourselves.”
Well, on top of a drop in quality since the so-called Golden Generation was broken up — Thibaut Courtois quit the national team in August, saying he would not represent them while Domenico Tedesco was manager — there has been chaos inside the Belgian FA, which is beset by financial problems. The governing body lost €11.9million (£10m; $13.1m) in 2023, according to its annual report released in July.
That uncertainty has extended to the medical department, which has been overhauled since the 2022 World Cup. In the summer, De Bruyne asked Tom O’Malley, a first-team physiotherapist at Manchester City, to accompany him to the Euros.
Given the perceived lack of effort on the pitch, coupled with off-the-field decisions that he has not liked, it starts to become clear why De Bruyne is running out of patience. The Belgian Football Association was contacted by The Athletic for comment.
There have been repercussions in Belgium, with his former team-mate, Toby Alderweireld — who was making his punditry debut on VTM that night — asked for his thoughts.
“It is a difficult issue but, as captain, I would always try to defend my team,” he said. “Yes, there can be some talk in the dressing room but what has happened now… the other (players) will certainly find that difficult. In the end, you have to come out of this situation as one, and because of the interview that Kevin gave, this becomes a bit more difficult.”
It might be useful to point out that Alderweireld and De Bruyne have had differences in the past. After Michy Batshuayi scored against Canada in Qatar, De Bruyne went over to the technical area to tell manager Roberto Martinez that Belgium were playing too many long balls.
Alderweireld disagreed with what was happening and went over to interject, so De Bruyne told him to shut up.
De Bruyne and Alderweireld clash at the 2022 World Cup (Simon Bruty/Anychance/Getty Images)
“I thought we had the wrong way of building up in the first half, we didn’t find the space while the space was there,” De Bruyne told reporters. “We adjusted that during the break, after which it was slightly better. Although it was still not good enough as a team.”
There were other comments that are entirely consistent with what he said just last week.
“We weren’t good enough, but the fighting spirit was good,” he told Belgian broadcaster Sporza. “That’s something we’ve always had, but it is also a minimum requirement. If it doesn’t work, you can still win. We need to learn from this and also be realistic. It has to be better, including myself.”
At City, there are rarely problems with the players’ effort levels, and certainly not quality. The squad, too, are looked after to the highest degree, as Ilkay Gundogan realised upon his short-lived move to Barcelona.
These are issues, then, that De Bruyne does not have to worry about in Manchester and it turns out that Kyle Walker relishes all the extra captaincy duties anyway, so there is a good balance that allows him to focus on the football.
With Belgium, there are clearly more issues that need addressing and De Bruyne has never been shy to do that.
(Top photo: Tomas Sisk/Photo News via Getty Images)
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