Dubai: You can’t help but feel a little bit sorry for Kevin De Bruyne. The 26-year-old midfielder has been the beating heart of Manchester City’s record 100-point Premier League win this season.
He has also topped the division’s most assists tally for two seasons running (with 18 and 16 assists from 36 appearances each season).
However, on both occasions he has just missed out on the PFA Players’ Player of the Year Award to Chelsea’s N’Golo Kante and Liverpool’s Mohammad Salah.
City’s failure to return to the semi-finals of the Champions League since the season De Bruyne was first brought in from Wolfsburg under Manuel Pellegrini in 2015/16, has also put him well back in the running for the Ballon d’Or, despite improving tenfold under Pep Guardiola.
He has almost become the personification of his Belgium national team in that he is brilliant but (personally at least) undecorated.
Like De Bruyne at City, Belgium are also surrounded by stars but still haven’t got as far as they should have done in the biggest stage; only reaching one World Cup semi-final from a total 12 appearances in 1986, crashing out in the quarters of their last appearance despite having one of the most fancied line-ups in world football.
Unlike Belgium though, De Bruyne’s inability to get recognition and reach his full potential is through no underachievement of his own. He has been consistently solid season-on-season but just gets pipped to the accolades by unbeatable one-off-season exceptions. Belgium on the other hand just haven’t gelled their team of stars.
Both he and the Red Devils can put an end to that this summer however, by De Bruyne redressing the lack of credit he gets, and his national team finally harmonising their big-name players to live up to expectation.
It is high time both came of age and if De Bruyne and his Belgium teammates can only replicate what they do at club level, there is no reason why they can’t go the distance.
To achieve that would finally put De Bruyne on the platform he deserves, and enable him to come back next year at City with renewed confidence to go all the way (or at least beyond the Last 16 and quarters) in Europe next season.
However good Belgium appear or De Bruyne is, it’s hard not to believe that both aren’t just one click away from being something much more exceptional.
