Kevin De Bruyne, a Belgian professional footballer, was born on 28 June 1991. He plays as a middle fielder for Premier League team Manchester City and the Belgian national team. He is widely considered one of the greatest players in the world and pundits often refer to him as a “complete soccer”.
De Bruyne started his career at Genk where he was a regular player during the 2010-11 Belgian Pro League. He joined the English club Chelsea in 2012, but was only used sparingly, and was then loaned out to Werder Bremen. In 2014, he signed for Wolfsburg for PS18million. He quickly established himself as one the top Bundesliga players and played a key role in the club’s win in the 2014-15 DFB-Pokal. De Bruyne moved to Manchester City in 2015 for a club-record PS54 million. De Bruyne has won three Premier League titles and five League Cups, as well as an FA Cup. He played a key role in Manchester City’s 2017-18 record of becoming the Premier League’s only team to score 100 points in one season. De Bruyne was named Player of the Season in 2019-20. He tied the record for the most assists in a Premier League season.
De Bruyne made international debut in 2010. He has played over 80 times and scored 23 goals for Belgium since then. He was part of the Belgian teams that reached the quarter-finals at both the 2014 FIFA World Cup as well as UEFA Euro 2016. He represented Belgium in the 2018 FIFA World Cup where Belgium beat England to win the third-place play-off match. He was also named in the FIFA World Cup Dream Team.
De Bruyne was named in the UEFA Champions League Squad of the season and the IFFHS Men’s World Team three times each. He also won the UEFA Team of the year and the ESM Team of the year three times each. De Bruyne has been named Premier League Player of the Season twice, Manchester City’s player of the year three times, the PFA Players’ Player of the year twice, the UEFA Champions League midfielder of the season, the Bundesliga Player of the Month, the Footballer of the (Germany), the Belgian Sportsman of the YEAR, and the IFFHS World’s best playmaker twice.
| Full name | Kevin De Bruyne |
| Date of birth | 28 June 1991 (age 30) |
| Place of birth | Drongen, Belgium |
| Height | 1.81m (5 ft 11in) |
| Position(s) | Midfielder |
| Club information | |
| Current team | Manchester City |
| Number | 17 |
Personal life
De Bruyne is the son of a Belgian mother, who was born in Burundi but has also lived on the Ivory Coast. His Dutch-speaking homeland, Drongen is located in Flanders. De Bruyne speaks Dutch as his mother tongue, but English, French, and German are also spoken by him. De Bruyne and Michele Lacroix have been together since 2014. They were married in June 2017 and have three children.
Borgerhoff & Lamberigts published his autobiography Keep It Simple in October 2014. Following the 2014 incident between De Bruyne, Thibaut Courtois and De Bruyne, De Bruyne left Courtois for Courtois’ then-girlfriend. De Bruyne wrote in his autobiography, “Although Courtois’ actions are still shocking to me, we work together professionally.”
De Bruyne served as an ambassador for the 2014 Special Olympics in Antwerp and also participated in a controversial advertising campaign via his Instagram account. The slogan was in Dutch: “Would it still be your fan if you looked like this?” De Bruyne was shown looking like someone with Down syndrome.
Style of play
De Bruyne has been widely regarded as one the greatest players in the world and is often called a “complete” player. He is a versatile player and highly skilled in media. Although he plays as an attacking or central midfielder, he can also play as a second striker or winger. Sometimes he even serves as a false 9 or in a box to box role. His technique, skill and athleticism as well as his vision, cross-across accuracy, high level of shooting and ability to shoot long-range with either foot, make him one of the most advanced and skilled modern-day playmakers.
He isn’t a strong player, but he has good speed and agility. His positional intelligence, tactical intelligence, movement and direct style of play allow him to exploit spaces in opposition’s defense and create goalscoring opportunities for himself and his teammates. This makes him an offensive threat to counter-attacks. He is a creative player with the ability to score goals from behind, into the penalty box, and is a skilled set-piece taker. The Guardian ranked De Bruyne as the fourth-best soccer player in the world in 2017 and the twelfth in 2019. Pep Guardiola, his Manchester City manager, described De Bruyne as the world’s best midfielder in 2020. [
