Player name: Kevin De Bruyne
Country: Belgium
Clubs: Genk, Chelsea, Werder Bremen, VfL Wolfsburg, Manchester City
DOB: 28/06/1991
Position: Attacking midfielder
Height: 5 ft 11 in
Kevin De Bruyne is a Belgian professional footballer who plays as a midfielder and is captain for Premier League club Manchester City and captains the Belgium national team. He is widely regarded as one of the best players of his generation as well as one of the best midfielders in the world. Pundits often describe him as a complete footballer.
De Bruyne began his career at Genk, where he was a regular player when they won the 2010–11 Belgian Pro League. In 2012 he joined English club Chelsea, where he was used sparingly and then loaned to Werder Bremen. He signed with Wolfsburg for £18 million in 2014, where he established himself as one of the best players in the Bundesliga and was integral in the club's 2014–15 DFB-Pokal win. In the summer of 2015 De Bruyne joined Manchester City for a club record £54 million. He has since won the UEFA Champions League, five Premier League titles, five League Cups and two FA Cups with the club. In 2017–18 he had a significant role in Manchester City's record in becoming the only Premier League team to attain 100 points in a single season. In 2019–20, De Bruyne equaled the record for most assists in a Premier League season and was awarded Player of the Season (which he won again in 2021–22). He was again heavily involved in 2022–23 as City sealed their first continental treble.
De Bruyne began his career at Genk, where he was a regular player when they won the 2010–11 Belgian Pro League. In 2012 he joined English club Chelsea, where he was used sparingly and then loaned to Werder Bremen. He signed with Wolfsburg for £18 million in 2014, where he established himself as one of the best players in the Bundesliga and was integral in the club's 2014–15 DFB-Pokal win. In the summer of 2015 De Bruyne joined Manchester City for a club record £54 million. He has since won the UEFA Champions League, five Premier League titles, five League Cups and two FA Cups with the club. In 2017–18 he had a significant role in Manchester City's record in becoming the only Premier League team to attain 100 points in a single season. In 2019–20, De Bruyne equaled the record for most assists in a Premier League season and was awarded Player of the Season (which he won again in 2021–22). He was again heavily involved in 2022–23 as City sealed their first continental treble.
Here at BC Boots UK, we have managed to acquire yet another total diamond piece of match worn memorabilia, none other than a pair of Nike Phantom GT 2 Elite football boots worn by Kevin De Bruyne during Manchester City's historic Treble Winning 2022-23 season! Oh, and they are also double hand signed by the man himself, just to add to the specialty factor! With KDB having firmly cemented himself as the best midfield player in the world in recent years, the desirability for his match worn items has rocketed up, whilst the possibility to acquire them has gone down at equal speed, which makes landing this pair right here a neigh on impossible task... but we relish in that level of challenge! And in this blog we will be going through every detail about this crazy rare museum piece.
De Bruyne made his full international debut in 2010, and he has since earned over 90 caps and scored 26 goals for Belgium. He was a member of the Belgian squads that reached the quarter-finals both at the 2014 FIFA World Cup and at UEFA Euro 2016. He was named in the FIFA World Cup Dream Team of the 2018 FIFA World Cup as Belgium finished in third place, as well as appearing in UEFA Euro 2020 and the 2022 FIFA World Cup. De Bruyne has been named in the UEFA Champions League Squad of the Season and IFFHS Men's World Team five times each, the ESM Team of the Year four times, the FIFA FIFPRO World 11 and UEFA Team of the Year three times each, the France Football World XI, and the Bundesliga Team of the Year. He has also won the Premier League Playmaker of the Season three times, the PFA Players' Player of the Year twice, Manchester City's Player of the Year four times, the UEFA Champions League Midfielder of the Season, the Bundesliga Player of the Year, the Footballer of the Year (Germany), the Belgian Sportsman of the Year and the IFFHS World's Best Playmaker twice.
This pair are from the 'Lucent Pack' which was released by Nike to the general public in August 2022, however, as with every colourway that gets released by the biggest brands in football, the sponsored players get their pairs supplied to them prior to general release in order to promote them on the biggest stages of the game ready for immediate sale. KDB wore this model/colourway from City's pre-season in July right up until when the 2022 FIFA World Cup began in November 2022, for which Nike released the 'Elite Generation' pack. Following the conclusion of the World Cup, on his return to his continuation of the 2022-23 campaign with City, KDB wore the newly released Nike Phantom GX for the remainder of the season. He did however continue to wear some of his Phantom GT pairs in training sessions. This pair were worn by KDB specifically during September & October 2022.
On 30 August 2015, Manchester City announced the arrival of De Bruyne on a six-year contract, for a reported club-record fee of £55 million (€75 million), making him the second most expensive transfer in British football history after Ángel Di María's move to Manchester United in 2014. He made his debut for the team in the Premier League on 12 September against Crystal Palace, replacing the injured Sergio Agüero in the 25th minute. A versatile and highly talented player in the media, he plays mainly as a central or an attacking midfielder but can also operate in several other positions and has been used as a winger or second striker. He has even been deployed in a deeper creative midfield position and on occasion, a box-to-box role or as a false 9. He is often described by pundits as one of the best and most complete modern day advanced playmakers due to his technique, skill, athleticism, work-rate off the ball, vision, crossing accuracy, wide range of passing, and powerful long-range shooting ability with either foot.
As is the case with the vast majority of Nike's top sponsored athletes, this pair were specially bespoke made to measure inside their Athlete Services factory which is located in Montebelluna, Italy. This factory has been running since 1996, and is specifically for their elite level athlete's custom equipment only. We don't know exactly how much it costs Nike to hand-make the amount of boots that they do for their top stars, but we can imagine that it's an eye watering figure! They cater to every specific need of their athletes to the finest detail, in order to provide them with the highest level of performance possible. As we can see above, the custom insoles of KDB's GT 2 Elite's feature the Nike Swoosh & 'Made in Italy' to the right, along with the Montebelluna logo to the left. The logo incorporates 'MB est '96' which stands for Montebelluna and the year in which it was founded, a pair of boots, the Nike Swoosh & the crafting tools to create the boots. Underneath the crest it states 'Athlete Service', this is of course, totally different to the insoles that would be found in a retail pair of GT's. The insoles themselves also feature a notable amount of additional padding throughout on the top layer, the retail insoles are certainly thinner.
De Bruyne is widely regarded as one of the best players in the world, and he has often been described as a "complete" footballer. De Bruyne was ranked the fourth-best footballer in the world by The Guardian in 2017 and the twelfth-best in 2019. In 2020, his Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola described him as the best midfielder in the world. As City chased The Treble in the 2022–23 season with De Bruyne playing a leading role, Jamie Redknapp said that De Bruyne was the best Premier League midfielder he had seen, ranking him above the likes of Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard. Although he is not blessed with significant physical strength, pace, or ability in the air, he is a quick and elegant player on the ball with good dribbling skills, while his positional sense, tactical intelligence, movement, direct style of play and ability to run at defences when in possession also enable him to take advantage of spaces in the opposition's defence and subsequently create chances and goalscoring opportunities for himself or his teammates, making him a dangerous offensive threat on counter-attacks. In addition to his creative abilities, he is also capable of scoring goals by making late runs off the ball from behind into the penalty area and is one of the best set-piece takers in world football.
The underside of KDB's custom insoles feature the same yellow foam style construction as what you'd find on the retail version, however, the contoured 'Nike Grip' finish has been shaven down at the player's request. This is something which we see fairly regularly on pro player Nike boots, with both match worn or match issued/un worn. We suspect that this may be done in order to relieve unnecessary added pressure in the midfoot area for KDB, although typically when we see this, the player has a custom insole board which does not incorporate the hole design for the Nike Grip parts of the insole to slot into.
Interestingly, KDB's version of the GT 2 isn't actually too far apart from the mass produced retail version! Unlike some other players, who get pairs that are almost unrecognisable in comparison to their retail equivalent counterparts. Although, the midfield magician does have some unique modifications to his pair. Seen above is the interior of the heel area, which features a huge amount of additional padding throughout, and also has a softer material for the heel liner. This padding also comes further towards the midfoot area than you'd generally see, so it's looking apparent that KDB likes his boots to have the ultimate comfort!
It was a magnificent year for City's brilliant Belgian. Kevin De Bruyne has established himself as one of the world’s greatest players over the past five or six years, but 2022/23 could be argued as his best yet. An inspirational footballer, a creative genius and a leader on the pitch in so many ways, KDB’s stats during our quest for the Treble begs the question: Is there a better player in world football at this moment?
Including 11 international matches for Belgium, Kevin has racked up 60 appearances in the last calendar year with almost no extended rest period. His 49 games for City saw him push his body to the limit, occasionally to his own cost as he continued to help his team achieve footballing immortality, as witnessed in a second successive heart-breaking Champions League final exit with injury.
When Nike custom make their sponsored player's boots inside their Montebelluna factory, they tend to not put any internal size labels in them due to their bespoke nature. Often, they are not an exact size, and of course they do not need to have information such as the barcodes, art no. and manufacture dates etc. that the pairs made for commercial sale on the retail market would need. The player's versions are made for promotional use only, which is the players wearing them on the biggest stages in world football, so therefore they do not need to need to meet retail sale requirements in those terms. Instead, the craftsmen inside the Athlete Service factory write a number inside each boot on the insole board which refers to the specific player's custom foot last ID code. The foot last is a physical mould of the player's feet in which the boots are made around.
One glance at his season stats confirms what every City fan already knows – KDB is one of our greatest players of all time and at his peak, he is a joy to watch and almost unstoppable. He registered an astonishing 28 assists in all competitions in 2022-23, eight more than any other player from Europe’s top five leagues – and the nearest being Lionel Messi with 20 speaks volumes of his phenomenal productivity.
It is the fourth time he has topped 20-plus assists as a City player having achieved the feat in 2016-17 (20), 2017-18 (21) and 2019-20 (22) and during that time, only two other Premier League players have done so (Christian Eriksen in 2016-17 with 23, and Mesut Özil in 2015-16 with 20. Kevin created an average of 3.4 chances per 90 minutes in all competitions in 2022-23, the best rate of any Premier League player with a minimum 1000 minutes played – so that pans out at one goal-scoring chance made every 25 minutes of every game he played last season. Astonishing.
The shape of KDB's match worn, custom made, Phantom GT 2 Elite's is a rather unique one. The boots themselves are rather narrow throughout, especially when compared to the retail version, there is a big visible difference. The upper is also more supported on the medial side of each boot, with the lateral cut being lower and softer which causes the angular appearance as we can see in the picture above from the front. The toe box areas are also crazy flat - almost no volume there at all! This is usually done so that the player is able to get a true barefoot feel on the ball, with the upper material really wrapping around the foot. Another interesting point to note, is that KDB uses extra long laces, which we would see no particular performance benefit to, just a personal preference of the player. Cristiano Ronaldo & Didier Drogba are examples of other players also used extra long laces on their Nike boots throughout their careers.
Nike have added the personal touch for KDB to his boots by adding the names of his three children, their dates of birth, along with the Belgium national flag. 'MASON MILIAN 10.03.2016', this is KDB's first born son, 'ROME 31.10.2018' who is the middle child of the three & 'SURI 03.09.2020' which is the name of KDB's daughter. An avid family man, De Bruyne has been in a relationship with Michèle Lacroix since 2014, the couple married in June 2017. As we can see in the images above, KDB hand signed each boot to the lateral side of the upper - this is CRAZY rare! It is hard enough to get match worn boots of the man himself, however, a double hand signed pair? Pure gold dust. Some players rarely sign their boots, and KDB is certainly one of them - this certainly adds to the specialty of this unique pair!
KDB assisted 16 goals in the Premier League in 2022-23, the division’s best and only Cesc Fabregas has managed more than the four occasions KDB has assisted 15 or more goals in single Premier League campaign. And the records and milestones continue to fall as his stellar career progresses. His delightful chip for Haaland’s headed goal against Southampton in April 2023 was his 100th Premier League assist in only his 237th appearance for City, achieving the landmark 56 games faster than the next best, Cesc Fabregas, who took 293 games.
But the accolades don’t end there... KDB’s eight assists for Erling Haaland in the Premier League in 2022-23, is the most one City player has assisted another in a single season in the competition and his six Champions League assists last season was also the most in the competition for 2022-23 - and he tied with Wrexham’s Sam Dalby as joint-top assist king in the FA Cup with four – two of which came in the final!
But the accolades don’t end there... KDB’s eight assists for Erling Haaland in the Premier League in 2022-23, is the most one City player has assisted another in a single season in the competition and his six Champions League assists last season was also the most in the competition for 2022-23 - and he tied with Wrexham’s Sam Dalby as joint-top assist king in the FA Cup with four – two of which came in the final!
KDB is one of very few elite level Nike athletes who actually uses the Anti-Clog SG-Pro soleplate, which incidentally was never mass produced and made commercially available on the retail market to the general public on the Phantom GT 2 Elite 'Lucent Pack' Dynamic Fit Collar variant. Nike released them only in FG with the Dynamic Fit Collar, however did release the low cut version with the Anti-Clog option. KDB has used this technology since it was released way back in 2018, and where most elite pros tried it out but eventually resorted to wearing SG-Pro versions, KDB has actually stuck with it.
We have even had match worn pairs in here at BC Boots UK which had the Anti-Clog branding on, but did not actually have that technology! Perhaps this is a sign that as so few pros were using the technology, Nike had to resort to making it seem as though players were using it, so that when consumers saw the boots in the stadiums and on TV, they were more interested to purchase Antgi-Clog boots for themselves. But with KDB, he does actually use this tech! What is interesting and noticable, is the fact that this pair are extremely light - much more so than you'd expect an Anti-Clog boot to be. Typically that is one of the main reasons players don't opt for it - too heavy and unnecessary! Coming in at 186 grams, it appears that Nike have managed to trim off some weight (whilst actually improving the build quality hugely over the retail version!) just for KDB. The boots measure to around a size UK8-8.5, which is a 9-9.5 in US sizing. And let's just bare in mind, that a retail version of the Phantom GT Elite weigh in at 218 grams in the FG variant! Such fine details as this help optimise performance for the player.
Above: Kevin De Bruyne using this pair in the Premier League fixture between Wolverhampton Wanderers & Manchester City played at Molineux Stadium on the 17th September 2022. City took all 3 points from the match, defeating Wolves 0-3 with goals coming from Jack Grealish, Erling Haaland & Phil Foden. City went on to win the Premier League title, beating Arsenal in the race having spent just 14 days at the top of the table. This triumph was City's first completed piece of their Treble jigsaw, with the second coming on the 3rd June 2023 as they defeated Manchester United 2-1 in the FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium.
As City adjusted to the arrival of number 9 Erling Haaland, it was De Bruyne who quickly tuned into the Norwegian’s wavelength and by the end of their first season, they had forged one of the most lethal understandings in the modern game. When De Bruyne picks up the ball, Haaland will invariably start his run or find a pocket of space, knowing that the ball will arrive at the perfect pace, height, or angle. It is a devastating partnership that blossomed during City's greatest ever season.
Above: Kevin De Bruyne using this pair in the UEFA Champions League Group G fixture between Manchester City & Borussia Dortmund played at the Etihad Stadium on the 14th September 2022. City won the match 2-1 with two late goals, one from John Stones in the 80th minute, and the other from Erling Haaland in the 84th minute. City would go on to win the competition in Istanbul on the 10th June 2023, defeating Inter Milan in the Final, completing the historic treble - a feat that hadn't been accomplished since club rivals Manchester United, some 24 years ago!
Let us know what you think of this insanely special, rare, museum level masterpiece of memorabilia in the comment section below!