A 2-0 defeat to France might not look too bad on paper, but Kevin De Bruyne was absolutely furious with his Belgium teammates.
The Manchester City megastar captained his side and played the 90 minutes in the loss at Parc Olympique Lyonnais in the Nations League.
Belgium played as close to a full-strength side as possible but only managed nine shots to France’s 25 as Paris Saint-Germain duo Randal Kolo Muani and Ousmane Dembele decided the tie.
De Bruyne was seen visibly livid at full-time, complaining at assistant coach Franky Vercauteren before going to chat with rival captain Kylian Mbappe.
Reports in Belgium claim the midfielder was mouth ‘I will stop’ to Vercauteren, casting doubt on his international future.
And those fears only grew worse as De Bruyne let loose in his post-match interview with VTM.
“I cannot say here what went wrong. I already said that to the team at half-time. I cannot repeat that in the media,” he began.
“It has to be better in every way. The standard is the top. If you can’t handle the top, you’re not good enough. And then you have to give everything on the field. Even that is not done by some.
“I can accept that we are not that good. I am also the first to say that in the past. But other things are unacceptable. I am not going to dwell on it. I did that when I was eighteen at Racing Genk. Now I am 33 and I don’t do that anymore.”
Aston Villa’s Amadou Onana, who played behind De Bruyne in a 4-2-3-1, was asked what he said at half-time, and answered: “Level up, everyone. That we had to play more intensely and better, because that was not what Belgium stands for.”
Belgium’s head coach Domenico Tedesco named De Bruyne his new captain in 2023, and was unsurprisingly asked about the outburst in an interview.
“He is our captain and has a huge winning mentality, so he can also react emotionally,” he said.
It’s not been a happy international break for De Bruyne, who has also strongly criticised UEFA and FIFA for the ever-expanding football schedule.
“The real problem will emerge after the Club World Cup,” he said before a 3-1 win over Israel.
“We know there will be only three weeks between the Club World Cup final and the first Premier League match. So, we have three weeks to rest and prepare for another 80 matches.
“Maybe this year things will be OK, but next year could be problematic. The Professional Footballers’ Association in England and other player associations have tried to find solutions.
“The issue is that UEFA and FIFA keep adding extra matches, and we can raise concerns, but no solutions have been found. It seems that money speaks louder than the players’ voices.”
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