Pep Guardiola Praises Kevin de Bruyne as One of Best Players He’s Ever Coached

The Belgian midfielder/striker can dribble, pass, shoot, and defend, and score free kicks if needed. Plus, De Bruyne does it all with a smoothness that all the best soccer players in the world possess. He makes it look easy. And after de Bruyne’s exceptional game versus Bournemouth you can see why Guardiola has praised de Bruyne like that.

Here are some Kevin De Bruyne highlights from his time at Manchester City so far. What’s amazing is De Bruyne is still very young and will go on to do incredible things for both Manchester City and Belgium. Could he help Belgium win the World Cup, yes, it’s possible and that would push De Bruyne to an elite level stats of world football players.

What do you think? Is Kevin De Bruyne now a world class player on the level of Messi, Neymar and Ronaldo. Guardiola think so.

Guardiola said this about de Bruyne in a post-game press conference. High praise from Guardiola for De Bruyne.

“I think he is a special player — an outstanding player.

“He makes everything. Without the ball he’s the first fighter, and with the ball it’s clear he sees absolutely everything. He decides what he has to do in the right moment every single time.

“Sometimes you have to pass with the first touch, sometimes you have to control. Sometimes you have to attack the ball. Every time he makes the right decision.

“I am lucky, we are happy. Hopefully he can enjoy with us to play his amazing football.

“He is one of [the best players I have managed]. Messi can sit alone in the table, it’s not allowed anyone else, but in the table beside, Kevin can sit there, there’s no doubt.”

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But you’d have to say, Guardiola has coached/managed a lot of amazing players during his time at Barcelona and Bayern Munich.

At Barcelona there was Xavi, Iniesta, Busquets, Henry and Etoo, to name some of the players. Heck, even Ibrahimovic spent some time at Barcelona under Guardiola, although the two didn’t get along and Zlatan soon left for PSG.

And then in Germany when he coached Bayern Munich there were player like Arjen Robben, Muller, Lewandowski, Ribery and many others.

One thing that stands out about De Bruyne is how he makes those cutting passes that surprise the defense, sometimes you think he’s going to shoot or try to take a defender on, but he cut the ball through to another player to cross or score. He’s very deceptive when he has the ball, you don’t know what he’s going to do. Which is what makes him so good.