Kevin De Bruyne has recently won the treble with Manchester City, with the Champions League added to their Premier League and FA Cup successes. But not many people know that his favourite team growing up as a child was one of City’s Premier League rivals.
A video from when the Belgian was 11 years old at KAA Gent shows him talking about his admiration for Liverpool.
He declared himself a fan of Michael Owen at the time: “I liked him (Michael Owen) because I was also small and quick and I was compared to him. I also really liked skilful players like Zidane and Ronaldinho,” he said. In 2019, as confirmed by the Daily Mail, the Belgian admitted that he was a Liverpool fan.
“The part of my family living in England were all fans like me,” said De Bruyne.
During his time at the Cityzens, he has had epic battles with Liverpool on 17 occasions, matches he must have enjoyed as much as the boy who confessed to being a Reds fan.
Now a City legend
Since his arrival at the Etihad, De Bruyne has become a club legend and has won virtually every title possible with City under Pep Guardiola: the recent Champions League, five Premier League titles, two FA Cups, five Carabao Cups and two Community Shields.
De Bruyne has also established himself as one of the best players in the world, winning two PFA Player of the Year awards and making the FIFA/FIFPro World XI from 2020 to 2022 consecutively