adminKevin De Bruyne has been “happy and smiling” since he returned to Manchester City after his World Cup dream turned into a nightmare in Qatar.
Belgium entered the tournament as one of the favourites but they crashed out in the group stages and the atmosphere amongst Roberto Martinez’s squad become fractured, partially as a result of an interview De Bruyne gave in which he said they had “no chance” of winning the World Cup because they were “too old”.
It was widely considered the last chance Belgium’s golden generation had of winning a trophy, but after a nervy win against Canada in their first game, they then lost to Morocco and drew with Croatia as their tournament ended after three matches.
That meant De Bruyne was back at the Etihad earlier than expected and he played around 80 minutes against Girona on Saturday, scoring one and creating another as the Blues won 2-0 in a friendly at the Academy Stadium.
The 31-year-old played like he wanted to put the World Cup behind him and Rico Lewis, who has been training with the first-team recently, said the Belgian hadn’t let any international disappointment affect him on his return to the day job.
“He’s been fine, been fine in the changing room and fine with everyone. I don’t think he’s let it affect him, you can see from [Saturday] he played really well. He’s been happy and been smiling, just like normal,” said Lewis.
Ilkay Gundogan is another player returning to City earlier than expected, with Germany also going out at the group stage, but Lewis said his senior teammates hadn’t spoken about the difficulties of a winter World Cup and how it might affect them.
“They’ve not really mentioned it, once it’s passed it’s passed, you can’t really focus on that anymore, it’s more about when we’re here, we’re here. It’s not been talked about much,” he said.
“It is difficult, it is a new thing for them, we’ll just see when everyone comes back how it affects them and how it affects the rest of the teams in the Premier League as well.” — Manchester Evening News.
Online Reporter