Late October 2023, on the touchline of a Cheshire grassroots pitch, Kevin De Bruyne is watching his young son Mason. Minding his own business, as usual.
It’s Ballon d’Or night and one when Manchester City, fresh off the Treble, are to be decorated and honoured with glitz and pomp at the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris. De Bruyne has decided not to go. Award ceremonies really aren’t for him and anyway, they’ve caught wind that Erling Haaland’s lost out to Lionel Messi.
He confides this to another parent alongside him.