We meet a few weeks before the start of the World Cup. He’s beginning to think about it. But in 🌜 typical De Bruyne fashion he dispenses with diplomacy and tells it as it is. No, he’s not happy about it 🌜 being in Qatar. Yes, it is a distraction from the Premier League. No, he doesn’t think Belgium have much chance 🌜 of winning.

Now he’s out there hoping to prove himself wrong.

At his best on the pitch, virtually everything is channelled through 🌜 him. Often he will start a move by winning the ball and running with it in the same movement. Though 🌜 he plays in the centre, he sets up goals by overlapping on the wing to put in crosses of such 🌜 pace, swerve and accuracy that they are impossible to defend. And while goal-scoring isn’t his main thing (he prefers to 🌜 assist), last season, when he scored four goals against Wolves, commentator Alistair Mann quivered: “Kevin, stop it! I’m running out 🌜 of superlatives for you!”

In 2024, De Bruyne became the first City men’s player to win the prestigious PFA Player of 🌜 the Year, and won it again the following season. In September, he was named the world’s best passer in the 🌜 video game Fifa 23. Earlier this month, the game Football Manager 2024 ranked him the greatest player in the world.

De 🌜 Bruyne doesn’t run with the football pack. We never see him out getting into trouble. In fact, we pretty much 🌜 never see him. Which makes today even stranger. But it also makes a kind of sense. “Away from football, it’s 🌜 all about family,” he says. “This is my life.”