Kevin De Bruyne of Manchester City
Kevin De Bruyne of Manchester City (Image: 2025 Robbie Jay Barratt - AMA)
Kevin De Bruyne can cut open defences at will but he's always been pretty blunt with his opinion.
The Manchester City legend said goodbye to the Etihad on Tuesday night on an evening packed full of emotion. It's perhaps fitting that the historical home of Fulham could provide his last moments in blue for De Bruyne will go down in history.
A modern day great, perhaps City's greatest ever, and a talent so irreplaceable, so incredible and so good that we might never see his like again.
He makes the difficult look gracefully simple on the pitch and is straightforward on the complex off it. He didn't shy away from interviews after the FA Cup final defeat to Crystal Palace and, as he always is, was honest in his views. He's always said what he thinks.
De Bruyne made light of his infamous 'let me talk' row with David Silva in a 2017 Champions League match during his speech after the midweek win over Bournemouth. But the Belgian has always been a straight shooter.
As a teenager he stepped up to train with Genk for the first time. He wasn't overly impressed with what he saw. 'Come on, you need to run more. Please let's be better' he screamed at incredulous senior team-mates.
"He always wanted perfection. And he didn't care who he had to shout at to get it," recalls former Genk skipper David Hubert of that training session when a 17-year-old De Bruyne announced himself.
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De Bruyne made his debut a few short months later and by then it was clear to all at Genk that they had a generational talent on their hands.
"Kevin was not just talk. He was doing it on the pitch. He was speaking with his feet and his mouth. We were soon in awe of him," Hubert added.
He helped Genk to the title in 2011 and attracted the glances of Chelsea. His time in London didn't work out but De Bruyne reminded European football of his talent during a spell in Germany with Wolfsburg and City came calling with a £55million offer.
The fee prompted Sky Sports pundits Paul Merson and Phil Thompson to label the decision 'an absolute joke' and 'absolutely bonkers'. Ten years on the joke is on them.
De Bruyne has flourished at City, helping them to win it all. He has an inate will to win, a desire that has prompted honest interviews in recent weeks about his belief he can still compete at the highest level despite the decision by City to let him leave.
At just eight he left local club VV Drongen for Gent because their training sessions were much better, he left the family home and moved 100 miles across the country for Genk in 2005 because he felt that was the best route for him.
Nothing would stand in his way. He accused teammates of not trying hard enough during a half time TV interview in 2012, and at Wolfsburg he shouted at a ball boy who he thought was deliberately slowing the game down.
Guardiola saw the character and the quality, he likened him to Lionel Messi and built a team around him at City. De Bruyne responded with jaw-dropping effect.
The 7-2 win over Stoke in October 2017 stands out, from the no-look reverse pass for Leroy Sane for his first assist of the day to his third, stealing the ball with a lung-busting interception before rolling a ball of anyone's dreams through to the back post where Sane smashed home.
The playmaker conducted City's successful orchestra, building to the crescendo of the Champions League and that 2023 Treble.
At the final whistle in Istanbul, an emotional Guardiola embraced him: "We did it. We did it. We did it. Seven years of fighting, we did it Kev. We did it. Now we have it."
De Bruyne did have it. He always had it. And City will always have him.