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Is Kevin De Bruyne Jose Mourinho’s biggest mistake? Watching the Belgian put in a brilliant, breathless and match-winning performance for Manchester City against Chelsea at the weekend adds credence to those who point an accusatory finger at the Special One.

But every argument needs context. Every debate needs both sides to be heard. And here Belgian sportswriter Kristof Terreur gives the inside story on how De Bruyne came to leave Chelsea...

In a meeting, around mid-December 2013, Jose Mourinho told De Bruyne he wasn’t too keen on letting him go "You’re a good player," was the message.

Too little too late. De Bruyne had already made up his mind. After all, he’d barely played for three months. Frustrated by a lack of explanation and no guarantees of a fair chance, he pushed for a permanent transfer out of Chelsea and to Wolfsburg. “I asked him kindly, 'Please let me go’.” A review without scapegoats. That’s how it all unfolded.

(Image: PA Wire)

De Bruyne never mentions revenge. And he always states his six-month spell at Chelsea, where he barely featured, wasn’t that bad at all. It’s not a PR job. It’s the way De Bruyne looks at life. He’s not the type that looks back in anger; he moves on. He always has done. Even when it didn’t work the way he wanted.

De Bruyne’s time at Stamford Bridge can be traced all the way back to the month of March, 2013.

The Belgian star, who is performing well on loan at Bundesliga club Werder Bremen, has set his mind on a move to Germany. Borussia Dortmund are calling. Their boss at the time, Jurgen Klopp , is very keen on adding the talented Belgian to his squad. He calls him a few times. He bombards him with text messages. Things move quickly.

(Image: Stuart Franklin/Bongarts/Getty)

On March 27 Belgian newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws drop the story on their front page: ‘De Bruyne closing on Dortmund - five year deal on the table’. “I had a personal agreement with Dortmund," De Bruyne would admit later.

“I asked Chelsea if I could leave, because I got a good feeling about Dortmund at the time. I’d been good in Germany. Klopp really wanted me because Mario Götze was moving to Bayern MUnich. He called me and said, ‘You’ll be the No.1’. In a team that ended on the second place in the Bundesliga and would later play the Champions League Final. I thought it would be a good decision to go.”

His gut feeling tells him to push for the move, but then the phone goes. It’s Mourinho. De Bruyne picks up the story: “He’d just been appointed as the new Chelsea manager. He told me, ‘You’re not going anywhere. You need to stay and you will get your chance’. He convinced me to stay, although there was a nice offer on the table from Dortmund. Mourinho said he believed in me and that I would get opportunities in pre-season and during the year. He didn’t want me to stay for the cup games only, but told me I would also feature in the Premier League. I have to admit I barely challenged him. I accepted his decision. I told him I would try to show what I was capable of. That’s it. It wasn’t a question of listening or not listening to him. I still had a contract with Chelsea. It wasn’t that easy.”

(Image: Alexander Hassenstein) (Image: Action Images via Reuters)

De Bruyne starts pre-season with Chelsea in a buoyant mood. Along with countrymen Eden Hazard and Romelu Lukaku, they tour Thailand and the United States for the International Champions Cup. De Bruyne knows there will be fierce competition. Spanish international Juan Mata (£24million) is one of the fans’ favourites and an influential player. Eden Hazard (£30m) hasn’t disappointed in his first season at Chelsea. Oscar (£29m) is a promising Brazilian international, who has featured regularly in his first year at Stamford Bridge. André Schürrle (£20m), a German international with Champions League experience, has just joined from Bayer Leverkusen, the third best side in the Bundesliga. De Bruyne (£7m), who’s spent a year on loan at the 14th best side in Germany, is up for the challenge.

He knows he is the least experienced from the five attacking midfielders, but feels he’s ready. While the Brazilian and Spanish players are still on holiday following the Confederations Cup, De Bruyne smells his chance. In the friendlies against teams of a good standard, such as AC Milan, he makes a good impression. He scores against the Italians too. Promising signs. A minor knee injury isn’t worrying him. “I’m very happy here”, he says during an interview in New York. “I’m ready. I will play for Chelsea this season. I’m not thinking about a loan any more. I’m just feeling good. I have never played on Premier League level, but that season in Germany and my performances with the Belgian national team have given me a boost.”

(Image: Getty)

On the opening day of the season, Mourinho puts De Bruyne in the starting XI against Hull, alongside Hazard and Oscar. He plays a more than decent first half and provides the assist for Oscar’s goal. De Bruyne says: “In the beginning it all went well. In my first Premier League game against Hull I immediately received the man of the match award from Sky. I played a good game, but I won’t say I played brilliantly.”

In the second game, against Aston Villa, De Bruyne is an unused sub, but at Old Trafford, against Manchester United , Mourinho decides to give him another chance. “I didn’t perform that well – just like the whole team," De Bruyne would later admit in his biography ‘Keep it Simple’. He struggles on the right wing and gets replaced after an hour.

His second start in the Premier League would turn out to be his last. At the end of August, Chelsea sign Willian, another attacking midfielder, for £30m. De Bruyne is included in the squad that travels to Prague for the European Super Cup meeting with Bayern Munich, but two hours before kick-off he learns he’ll be in the stands. He’s bitterly disappointed. In the back of his mind, there’s still Dortmund.

(Image: Michael Regan / Getty)

“Staying at Chelsea is the only career choice I have taken without following my gut feeling," he would say in his biography. “And as you’ve seen, it didn’t turn out they way we wanted. If I could have to change one decision in my life, it might be that one. I would push that move to Dortmund through. It was an important moment in my career.”

A few days after his omission from the Chelsea squad, De Bruyne is still struggling with his disappointment. Team-mates and observers of the national team notice he’s not in his best mood during training sessions. Marc Wilmots gets even asked about De Bruyne’s behaviour during his press conference. “I’ve also noticed this negative energy," says Wilmots. “This is a new situation for him. He’s mentally strong, but it’s not going the way he wants to at Chelsea.” Wilmots has a long chat with De Bruyne. He tries to lift his mood.

In the first weeks of September he doesn’t play a lot – bar a cameo of six minutes against Fulham. De Bruyne is mostly an unused substitute. Hazard, Schürrle, Mata, Oscar and Willian all get their opportunities to shine, while De Bruyne is left frustrated on the bench. Because De Bruyne is a rising star in Belgium, and the main man in the national team, Mourinho gets questions about him every week. Mourinho responds with: “If De Bruyne doesn’t play 20 games this season, than it’s because he doesn’t deserve it. If he deserves it, he will play. If you guys in Belgium are afraid, talk to him. Put pressure on him. Tell him, ‘Hey kid, you have to become man of the match’. I can live with that. Kevin is a great player, but there’s a lot of competition. In the national place he’s probably a guaranteed starter, and with Werder too. But this is another level. You won’t influence me.”

(Image: Getty Images)

On September 24 he gets his chance to prove Mourinho wrong in the Capital One Cup game against Swindon, but he fails to impress. He’s hooked after 78 minutes. The manager doesn’t like what he sees. He leaves de Bruyne of out the squad for the game at Spurs. Mourinho explains in his press conference: “If we all agree that Juan Mata deserves his chance, I have to leave one player out of the squad. Kevin hasn’t convinced me against Swindon, so he’s out of the squad. Kevin has to understand that Chelsea aren’t Werder Bremen. You have to fight for your spot every single training and every single game. The next time he’s play – and he will play – he has to understand he plays for his next game.”

De Bruyne doesn’t understand it all. In his eyes he’s training well. Frustrations are boiling.

Even more so when he’s left out of the squad for the Champions League game against Steaua. He has to stay in London and train with the youngsters - the usual procedure for players who are not selected. His omission makes the headlines in Belgium. Sources close to the player are quoted: ‘this is a public humiliation by Mourinho’, ‘a motion of no-confidence’, ‘a character assassination’.

De Bruyne stays in the news, makes even more headlines, when Mourinho is asked about him at the press conference in Bucharest. The manager seems to storm out his press conference – though footage made it clear he’d already pointed out that was the last question. Mourinho said: “You are for three weeks speaking about Mata, now you are speaking about De Bruyne. He’s not selected. It was my decision. Only 11 can play and 18 can be selected. I try to be honest with Kevin. He’s not selected because I didn’t like the match he played against Swindon and I didn’t like the way he was training. But you have this tendency to only ask about players that are not selected. See you tomorrow.”

(Image: Getty Images)

Enter Klaus Aloffs, sporting director at Wolfsburg, who states he would be keen on signing De Bruyne. Behind the scenes the talks have started. De Bruyne is having a tough time. His agent, parents and friends often fly over to console him. He has never been one for splinters in his backside – ‘I don’t like sitting on the bench’, he told some papers when he was 18 – and suffers more than he wants to admit.

He’s only used in League Cup games and as a sub in Champions League games. De Bruyne bemoans his situation in October 2013: “I wasn’t good against Swindon, that’s true. But everybody who knows me, knows that I’m always doing my best in training. That’s an easy excuse. Maybe they should have open training sessions at Chelsea, so everybody can see I’m doing well. Look at me: don’t I look sharp? At this point I have no regrets. Willian’s move has made the competition more fierce. My chance will come. I don’t think about January as yet.

Reflecting on that difficult period in 2014 – his body language can be pretty negative when he’s not feeling all right, De Bruyne is still no clearer. “I don’t know if it was my body language. I never got an explanation and I still don’t understand it. I said something about open training sessions in an interview. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. But I thought at that point that I had the right to defend myself. Was it my body language? I always take people like they are, so they have to take me like I am. But once and for all: I don’t know if that was the reason. I don’t know why I lost my place after the game against Manchester United. I never asked Mourinho. He never told me, 'Kevin, you don't train well'. It's a pity he told that on a press conference. Those remarks created a false image."

In November, after only 86 minutes in League Cup and Champions League, he makes up his mind. “At the beginning I couldn’t live with my omission from the squad. I became crazy. But after two months I’d reconciled myself with the situation. I thought: work hard and prepare yourself for your next club. I was counting down. In November the staff were telling me that I was doing well and that I would get a chance. But after a short while I realised that it was bulls**t. That’s when I took the decision: no new loan, I want a permanent transfer.”

In mid-December his agent travels to London to have a meeting with Mourinho and the board. De Bruyne has a one-on-one with his manager too. takes up the story: “At a certain moment Jose Mourinho called all the attacking midfielders in his office. He showed us the stats. Assists, goals, pass percentage, decisive actions, dribbles. He wanted to prove that I didn’t perform at the same level as the others. I answered him, 'Sorry, that’s not logical. I’ve played less games that the others. How can you compare us?' That wasn’t fair.”

In the meetings De Bruyne and his agent make clear he wants to leave for good. De Bruyne told Belgian press: “Mourinho told me things about competition, training hard, there’s always a chance that you’ll play. He also told me he wasn’t keen on letting me go, even not on loan – ‘you are a good player’. But what could I do more. After that press conference in Bucharest I started training harder. I lost three kilos and two per cent of my fat. But my situation never changed. That’s why I asked him in a friendly way: please let me go! At the beginning, Mourinho opposed a transfer. He wanted me to fight for my place. But I’ve told him I had a feeling I would never get a fair chance. That’s when the club started looking at a transfer too.”

(Image: Otto Greule Jr)

In his biography, De Bruyne added: “We told Chelsea I didn’t want to be loaned out any more. They’d signed me from Genk, and immediately sent me back on loan to Genk. They recalled me and loaned me out to Werder Bremen. After those experiences I’d rather wanted to be sold. Otherwise I would end up in the same situation all over again: playing well on loan, returning to your parent club and then, every year again, feel like the young player back from loan who still has everything to prove. That’s something I didn’t want to experience for a third time in a row.

"Let’s say that I would perform well at Wolfsburg, that I would play a good World Cup and that I would return to Chelsea afterwards with the same status that I had before. No, I didn’t fancy that. I decided to leave on a permanent basis. At Chelsea they wanted me to stay, but I had the feeling I wouldn’t get a fair chance. That’s why I wanted to move to a club that wanted to pay Chelsea’s asking price.”

At the end of January 2014, De Bruyne got the move he wanted. Wolfsburg paid around £20m with performance- related bonuses. “I don’t consider my period at Chelsea as a failure," he said a few months after the move. “I didn’t waste my time over there. I became a better player. And also the club was better off. They did good business: they got three times the money they’d paid for me in 2012. I’ve left without a fight or without arguments. That’s why I don’t want to look back a lot: it’s a closed chapter for me.”

(Image: REUTERS)

That’s what he repeated on Saturday too, when the best midfielder in the Premier League scored the winner for Manchester City against his former club.

“I’ve no regrets over anything that happened. I don’t think they have regrets. I think they’ve won two PL titles since I’ve been gone, so they’re doing fairly well! It’s just the way, it’s a business. For me at that point it was a good decision to go, and maybe for them it was also good to let me go. So you never know what’s going to happen if I would stay here for another three years, nobody knows….”

But he moved on, without blaming Mourinho. For Kevin De Bruyne it’s just something that happened. Not a mistake.