De Bruyne was abandoned, but when the money came, his family wanted to take him back

So, listen to this… De Bruyne has one of the most emotional and

tragic life stories of any football player and knowing that…. it makes it 10x more impressive that he has

managed to become a football superstar. Right from the beginning, he was abandoned

by his foster family and nearly expelled from his academy, when he was supposed to have

had his big break his girlfriend cheated on him with one of his teammates and made him

a mental wreck… he ended up being deemed a flop by the media and still he used used

his anger as fuel to become greater and in the end he had reached the top, and still

life didn’t stop hitting him with tragedy after tragedy. This is the incredible story of Kevin De Bruyne. Enjoy. It all started in his garden, where after

repeatedly breaking the pots, his parents forced him to only play with his weak foot…

looking back now, it was a good decision. At 8 years of age, he was already getting

into trouble. It had been 2 years since he joined his local

club, KVV Drogen and he was already trying to take the next step in his career… So he quite simply told his coach “The training

sessions are better at Gent” and moved to his new club. However things at Gent didn’t get easier,

he wasn’t a troublemaker but though he was oddly quiet, he had a really strong character,

he was ambitious and overly honest. And it seems that kind of scared away his

teammates and even his coaches, who would try their hardest to make him “normal”. But though they tried a lot, they rarely ever

succeeded. One time back then he was so annoyed that

one of them was always on his back that he refused to let go of the goalpost until he

felt he had been understood, except that by then it was night time. That same coach would go on to bow down and

admit “He is stubborn like a mule, but I can see now that that’s what made him so

great“. Regardless, over time news of his great talent

travelled far and wide and so Genk, knowing the kid was unhappy, convinced him to move

all the way across the country all by himself to play for them. But it was at this moment that De Bruyne experienced

his first big heart break… After a year living in a boarding home, Genk

made a special arrangement where young players instead of being housed in their premises

would be hosted by a foster family and so De Bruyne along with two of his teammates

moved in with this new family. But the past year had been tough for De Bruyne,

he was already socially awkward back in his hometown but now all the way across the country

and speaking with a funny accent, well as he said it himself “they were the loneliest

years I’ll ever live”. However, now with this new family, he felt

safe, he wasn’t so alone anymore and it helped him to fit in… after a year, he felt

like it all had gone smoothly, he was “doing good in school, doing good in football, no

fights, no problems”. As he waved them goodbye before summer break,

his foster family waved back and told him they’d see him next year… but the moment

he arrived at his hometown, he walked into his house to find his mom crying… she looked

at him and said something that in his own words “shaped the rest of his life”. “The foster family called and they don’t

want you there…it’s about who you are, they say that you’re too quiet, that they

can't interact with you… you’re just too difficult.” De Bruyne obsessed over these words, because

no one had said anything to him… he was so focused on making it that he just tried

his best not to cause any troubles, keeping quiet inside his room waiting for the next

training session… but turns out that was a problem and as his mother finish telling

him what happened, he just picked up a football from the floor and ran to his backyard and

kicked the ball against a fence for hours… with those 5 words looping in his mind “it’s

about who you are, it’s about who you are”... The worst part wasn’t even that he had been

abandoned by these people who were family to him…. the thing is that the club had

been contacted and they now thought he was a problem, so much so that they weren’t

willing to pay for another foster family to take care of him and instead he’d be sent

to another boarding house, but this one was special… it was a boarding house for troubled kids… When the pain finally calmed down, he relaxed

and said out loud to himself “Everything is going to be O.K. In two months, I’m going

to be in the first team. No matter what, I am not coming back home

a failure. No matter what.” At this point he was already 16 and though

he had already played a few matches for the B team, he was, in his own words “a nobody”... But that year, once summer was over, he arrived

at Genk and… I’ll just quote him: “I had so much fire

inside me. It was mad. I remember the exact moment everything changed. We played on a Friday night. I started on the bench. When I came on in the second half, I just

went crazy. One goal, they don’t want you anymore. Two goals, too quiet. Three goals, too difficult. Four goals, they don’t want you any more. Five goals, because of who you are. I had scored 5 goals in a single half of football”

It had been such an undeniable performance, that De Bruyne was moved to the first team

immediately, it had been 1 month and 20 something days, he had actually made it to the first

team faster than he had promised he would… Once there, the club started acting a bit

strange, saying they wanted to pay the foster family to get him back living with them… They even showed up and the foster parents

told him it had all been a misunderstanding, that obviously they would like him to stay,

what they meant before was that they only wanted him to come over on weekends but before

they finished trying to dig themselves out of a hole, De Bruyne just said “You threw

me in the trash and now that I’m doing good you want me back?” and before they could

even say something he turned his back on them… Eventually when he finally talked about this

in an interview he said that he should have probably thanked them, because it was their

actions that fuelled him to become great. And indeed the following years were something

special… In the first, he barely played. In the second, he started getting minutes

and by the third, he took the league by storm… Getting 5 goals and assisting a further 16… And leading Genk to their third league title

in their history, clenching it by half a point, that might sound weird, but it’s actually

true, in the belgian league in case of a tie in points, the portion of them obtained from

the first stage is rounded down half a point and that’s just what happened that year. If that’s the tightest title race you’ve

e ver heard of, drop a like on the video. That same year, he still managed to go another

step further, earning his debut for the Belgian national team and instantly impressing everyone

there, with Vincent Kompany even saying that by the time their first training session together

was over, all the players were chatting to each other like “did you see that? He’s 19 and he’s already the best player

in the team”. Also, fun fact, his mom was actually born

in Burundi, in Africa, so technically he could have played for them instead. Wonder why he didn’t…. *show ranking*

But despite this success, don’t think for a second that De Bruyne had changed… His Genk career was full of strange moments. First, at 19, he saw fit to confront the team’s

star player Elyaniv Barda, to complain that he didn’t work hard enough in training and

then in 2012, he got so annoyed at his team’s poor performances that he used the post match

press conference to say “I’m ashamed of my teammates and I suggest to those who don’t

have a desire to play, just leave”... But in the end it would be De Bruyne who would

leave… signing for Chelsea who were so impressed

by his performances that they intended to make him their Frank Lampard replacement… But before that he would go on loan to Werder

Bremen. In the Bundesliga, he quickly cemented his

status as one of the world’s greatest up and coming talents. If others made waves with flashy skills, De

Bruyne was simple, and somehow that was even more impressive, because just as Cruyff had

once said: “Football is simple, but playing simple football is the hardest thing there

is” Even with Bremen flirting with relegation,

De Bruyne pulled off 10 goals and 9 assists and casually took the award for Young Player

of the year, it was time to focus and take over the Premier League. But focus was something De Bruyne struggled

with that season. Because it just happened to be that year that

his girlfriend cheated on him with childhood friend, ex academy and international teammate

Thibaut Courtois. And she wasn’t even nice about it, confirming

the whole scandal to the press and making sure to say that Courtois gave her in one

night more than De Bruyne had given her in three years, though to be fair she would make

sure to say that she did it as revenge, supposedly De Bruyne had cheated on her months before. Still, with his form hitting a low point just

when he needed to be performing the most and Mourinho giving him a hard time, De Bruyne

would be sold after just half a season playing at Chelsea… he had only managed 1 assist

and not a single goal at that point. His next destination was Wolfsburg, back to

the Bundesliga. But once again, De Bruyne channelled his rage

into his game. Even with Courtois joining Chelsea after he

departed, in what seemed like a bit of poetic injustice, De Bruyne still managed to remain

calm and be the bigger man, allowing Courtois to continue playing for the Belgian national

team after that coach gave De Bruyne the power to decide if his behaviour should be punished. In fact that same year, De Bruyne was Belgium’s

top scorer in the qualifying stage, leading them to their first international tournament

in 12 years. Once the next season started, De Bruyne took

advantage of this blank canvas he had been given and created a masterpiece, with 16 goals,

scoring 2 goals against Bayern, in a match that ended up becoming their first defeat

in nearly a year, as well as an absurd 27 assists, 21 of which came in the league, which

at the time, was a Bundesliga record, he took Wolfsburg to a cup title and second place,

only behind Bayern and to top it all off a place he earned a place at the Ballon D’Or

and won the award as the league’s Player of the year… And if you’re wondering how he managed to

make such a comeback after having his heart broken, well… he met his future wife. He was so insecure after years of media persecution

that his friend had to take his phone and send that first text but now… De Bruyne says she changed his life, that

without her, he would have never been able to get out of his shell. By the end of the year, they were already

about to have their first child, and unfortunately, a major scare arrived when one morning, his

wife woke up and she was bleeding, the moment De Bruyne felt helpless in that hospital hallway

he realised that there was much more to life than football and though in the end everyone

was okay, he had once again had a life changing moment. From there on out, he didn’t play because

he had a fire in him that needed to be fueled, he played because he was in love with the

game. And one year after his move to Manchester

City for 76 million euros, making him the league’s most expensive ever player, depending

on the currency, one man arrived that changed his life forever… Pep Guardiola. Ever since his return to the league, De Bruyne

was labelled as a flop, a Chelsea reject, but then Guardiola sat De Bruyne down and

told him quite simply “Kevin, listen. You can be a top five player in the world. Top five. Easily”

If previously De Bruyne struggled with authoritarian coaches, this was the perfect approach, there

was no need for being fired up, De Bruyne didn’t need to prove Pep Guardiola wrong,

he wanted to prove him right and with every season that came after that, claims that he

wasn’t anything more than a Chelsea flop, crumbled bit by bit. In his second season with Pep, De Bruyne topped

the assist charts with 16 assists and led City to become the first ever club to hit

100 points. Over summer, his form only continued escalating

as after a number of underwhelming tournaments with Belgium, De Bruyne finally managed to

live out his dream of bringing glory back to the national team, pairing up with Hazard

for one of their most successful ever tournaments, even scoring the winning goal to take down

Brazil in the quarter finals, before going down to France and beating England to conquer

the bronze medal, Belgium’s highest ever achievement at the world cup. The Ballon D’Or rankings now considered

him a top 10 player in the world, Guardiola's claims were slowly becoming true.But 2019

proved to be another tough year, his injuries came over and over again and the day after

his second son was born, De Bruyne tore a ligament in his knee, leaving him in a brace…

he called his wife and she noticed a tear in his eye… he told her “I’m not gonna

be able to even dress myself, you’re gonna have three babies at home now” and broke

down crying… she was as worried as she was shocked… Once he calmed down she told him “You didn’t

even cry at our wedding, you didn’t cry when the kids were born, and one was literally

born yesterday”... reflecting on that moment, he would go on to say “Weddings and funerals? I’m a rock, but take football away from

me and I’m done”... But worry not, once he got back into shape,

he did not look back. The 19/20 season became a staple of his career

and even if City failed to win the title, with 20 assists, not to mention an extra 13

goals, De Bruyne had tied the legendary Thierry Henry for the league’s all time assist record

and had been named the best player in the league. Had the Ballon D’Or been a thing in 2020,

he would likely have been picked as one of the 5 best in the world… I guess we’ll have to wait. Ever since then, he has continued to excel,

he is on the way to a 4th premier league title and just a few weeks ago, he scored and assisted

against Real Madrid to no effect as City once again will miss the Champions League final,

it’s the one thing keeping De Bruyne from going head to head with pretty much any midfielder

who ever played the game, as Guardiola once said “Messi sits on a table all by himself,

but De Bruyne, he can certainly sit in the table beside it”