New club, new country, new culture, new position. Kevin De Bruyne seems to have adapted to it all at Napoli, but the 34-year-old midfielder is heading back to his old life this week.
Napoli’s Champions League opener on Thursday sees De Bruyne return to Manchester City, just a few months after his tearful goodbye following 10 trophy-laden years at the club where “King Kev” became a firm fan favorite and one of its greatest ever players.
After nine years working under Pep Guardiola, De Bruyne has slotted seamlessly into Antonio Conte’s team and has already scored two goals in three matches to help Napoli’s title defense get off to a perfect start.
“Kevin is a bit of a genius,” Conte said after Saturday’s 3-1 win at Fiorentina. “We are trying to carve out a new role for him that fits in with what he can give us.”
Conte has a midfield packed with talent at Napoli and that has seen — in a tactical shift that appears to be working — De Bruyne and Scott McTominay taking turns in switching from their central roles to a more unusual position for them out wide.
And the pair already seem to be forming a lethal duo, with their physical strength, awareness and eye for goal, as they alternate positions with fluidity.
“We tried to find a solution, a good coach must make the players coexist, last year the midfielders were important for the scudetto,” Conte said. “Kevin’s arrival could have meant that one of the three was left out, but I think the role we are carving out for Kevin is perfect for him. Also because he likes to play the ball.
“We try to give fewer points of reference to our opponents, even last year we were very high in our pressure: you have to be prepared to do these types of things which also expose you to risks, that’s why I hammer them on a tactical level.”
Shopping in Manchester
McTominay also made the move from Manchester to the sunnier climes of Naples last year, joining from City’s neighbor Manchester United and going on to be named Serie A’s MVP on his debut season.
That helped to persuade Conte to go shopping again in Manchester — signing Rasmus Hojlund on loan from United after striker Romelu Lukaku was injured shortly after the arrival of De Bruyne, his long-time Belgium teammate.
Hojlund scored on his debut on Saturday.
“He’s 22 years old, we signed him from Manchester United, seeing as it brought us luck with McTominay,” Conte said with a laugh. “Jokes aside, we knew Rasmus’ skills. He has important potential.”
When De Bruyne made his Etihad Stadium farewell alongside his wife and young children, he finished an emotional speech to City’s fans with the words: “It’s time to say goodbye. I’ll be back. We love you, see you soon.”
De Bruyne’s return to a stadium where there will soon be a statue in his honor is coming sooner than he could have imagined.
Post-De Bruyne City
The post-De Bruyne era at City has begun with Pep Guardiola needing to find new ways of delivering chances and goals for star striker Erling Haaland without English soccer’s biggest creative force for the past decade.
It looks like the load will be shared.
Because De Bruyne’s vision is pretty much unmatched, Guardiola is leaning on a variety of players to fill the void — and he has plenty of attacking midfielders for that.
Rayan Cherki, an enigmatic playmaker signed from Lyon this summer, could end up being the top creator replacing De Bruyne but he is currently out for two months with a thigh injury.
Tijjani Reijnders is another central midfielder brought in this offseason, but he plays deeper than De Bruyne and is more of a box-to-box player than a roaming playmaker.
There’s hope that Phil Foden will be City’s main attacking midfielder for the next decade, but he is searching to rediscover his form of two seasons ago when he was English soccer’s player of the year. Winger Jeremy Doku and Omar Marmoush have laid on assists for Haaland already this season, too, but can be inconsistent.
City, then, has no like-for-like replacement for De Bruyne, who for 10 years created goals out of nothing, wherever he was on the field, through his incredible range of passing. It’s why his departure was so significant for Guardiola as it is forcing him to change his team’s overall approach.
On Thursday, Guardiola will have to think about stopping De Bruyne as much as replacing him.
“I think he (De Bruyne) will be happy to come back home,” said Doku, about his Belgium teammate. “At the end of the day, we’re not going to show him mercy.”
___
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
