Kevin De Bruyne came to Manchester City as their record signing and will leave as their greatest ever player. “Every story comes to an end,” he said, announcing his summer departure. A coda to the last chapter has long seemed obvious. Manchester, he said, will forever be in his family’s hearts and a version of him will surely forever be around the Etihad Stadium. De Bruyne is likely to be immortalised in bronze, celebrated in a statue.
Opponents can admire him there, safe in the knowledge their defence will not be unlocked by an act of extraordinary brilliance. As Pep Guardiola reacted to De Bruyne’s decision, the City manager underlined how productive an artist has been. “I read today that he’s been involved in 280 goals and assists,” said Guardiola.
Even more. In a decade, De Bruyne has scored 106 times for City, made a further 176 goals. He predated Guardiola by a year but no one has ever made more goals for the Catalan’s teams than the Belgian, with 161.
De Bruyne will go as arguably the Premier League’s finest ever creator. He equalled Thierry Henry’s record of 20 in a season and had four campaigns with at least 16. He is second in the all-time assist charts to Ryan Giggs, but the Welshman played a further 12 seasons in the division.
De Bruyne reached a century of assists in 56 fewer games than anyone else. He was dynamic on the counter-attack, incisive in the inside-right channel. He did not need to beat a man or reach the byline. He simply bent it like Beckham, whipping in passes and crosses, corners and free kicks, with a blend of pace, accuracy and menace that seemed to render them undefendable.
As Guardiola pointed out, De Bruyne allied remarkably quality with consistency, until injury intervened. The 2023 Champions League final, which brought the crowning glory of the treble, was the beginning of the end, the hamstring injury he aggravated in Istanbul the first of a series of absences.
Yet that campaign produced 29 assists, a number that is every bit as much of an outlier as Erling Haaland’s 52 goals. And if the two are connected – and, much as everyone else at City will miss De Bruyne, the Norwegian will most of all, given the brilliance of his supply line – the Belgian was arguably the decisive player in winning the Premier League title, given his colossal performances in the two games against Arsenal.
De Bruyne rarely gave the impression that individual awards mattered much to him. He was twice named PFA Player of the Year and, but for the other-worldly goalscoring feats of Mohamed Salah and Haaland, would have claimed more prizes. But he had medals aplenty from the most successful spell in City’s history.
“He gave all of us with his humility and his influence in our success in the last decade,” said Guardiola. “That would have been impossible to imagine without him.” De Bruyne was luckless in two Champions League finals, leaving each injured, but garnished every other occasion.
He also brought some of the personality to City. The accusation levelled at Guardiola is that his teams can be too bloodless, beating opponents with perfectly-constructed moves of precise passing. De Bruyne, though, was a throwback, a team player but one lending the individual inspiration; part David Beckham, part Steven Gerrard.
He was the unassuming everyman with genius in his right boot. He didn’t look an athlete – especially as he got older, redder of face – and, in some ways, was the antithesis of the Silvas, David and Bernardo, who rarely misplaced a pass but usually eschewed the spectacular. De Bruyne attempted it, and often succeeded.
There was many a masterpiece. One to illustrate his singular talent came in 2023, in a 7-0 rout of RB Leipzig that may be remembered most for Haaland amassing five goals. Guardiola has previewed the game by saying De Bruyne was at his best when he stuck to the simple things. The Belgian’s night began with an extraordinary pass, struck with the outside of his right foot, that took almost the whole Leipzig team out of the game. Then he rattled the bar from 20 yards with his left foot, Haaland scoring from the rebound. He ended his night curling a shot from long range into the top corner. The simple things? Perhaps they were for Kevin De Bruyne.
He was the least Guardiola of Guardiola midfielders, uninterested in pass completion rates but the most likely to provide the killer ball. It made their alliance intriguing but the manager’s tribute was heartfelt. “His assists, his goals, his vision in the final third, it’s so difficult to replace. What he’s done here for the past decade has been outstanding,” said Guardiola.
And the problem with unique players is that, by definition, they are irreplaceable. There is no point looking for the next Kevin De Bruyne. There isn’t one.
“He’s one of the greatest we’ve ever seen,” said Guardiola, the man who will be charged with finding a future without him. He has waved goodbye to City legends, to David Silva and Sergio Aguero and Yaya Toure and Vincent Kompany. There were earlier generations of favourites, particularly Colin Bell and Francis Lee. There is Haaland, whose sheer weight of goals could yet mean he takes the premier place in the City pantheon. But if he is a machine, De Bruyne has been a magician. And that made him still more special.