Not even Belgium relieves De Ketelaere. De Bruyne: “Young people are not like we were”

It seemed like the promised land, an oasis in the desert, a place for the soul to breathe clean air after two foggy months in Milan. But no. Charles De Ketelaere, the most expensive acquisition of the Rossoneri summer, slipped into a powder keg called Belgium, where the senators publicly teased each other on several occasions. These are the facts: Kevin De Bruyne, star of City and of the national team for several years, standard bearer of the Belgian golden generation, said that the Red Devils have no chance of winning the World Cup “because they are old”. That’s right.

STRESSED CLIMATE

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KDB continued: “We have lost key players, we are moving forward with age. The young players are there, but they are not at the level we were in 2018. Our big chance to win was there. I see us more as simple outsiders”. An interview that made the other senators in the locker room nervous. Belgium has 11 players aged thirty and over. Lukaku, Carrasco, Thorgan Hazard and Batshuayi have 29. And again De Bruyne 31 , Alderweireld and Witsel 33, Mertens and Vertonghen 35. And it was the Anderlecht center back who replied to De Bruyne, all after the 2-0 defeat against Morocco, which came after the good performance against Canada. ironic that smacks of split locker room, unhappy, anything but serene: “We have quality, but perhaps we attacked badly because we’re old, right? There will always be such a thought. Things go through my head that I shouldn’t say, at least not outside the locker room.”

And CDK?

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All in all, a controversial story. De Ketelaere watches as a spectator. Martinez took him to Qatar despite two difficult months, 18 appearances in the league and cups with only one assist, at home against Bologna. In between, a string of benches, 5 on his report card, a wrong goal against Monza and several games in which he wasn’t as incisive as he should have been. Pioli, Maldini and Massara have always defended him staunchly, the club believes in it and will believe it at least for a while, but the climate around the Belgian is anything but serene. So far he has only played a quarter of an hour against Morocco. In the first match won against Canada he remained on the bench. CDK is one of those valuable young men De Bruyne spoke of, a lifetime idol and reference, one of the ‘youngest’ of the expedition together with Debast (19), Doku (20) and Amadou Onana (21). There remains a 2001 in which Milan has invested 35 million including bonuses, but the air doesn’t help.