Antonio Conte has revealed how sorry he was to have substituted Kevin De Bruyne after 26 minutes during Napoli’s Champions League clash with Manchester City.
Having joined Serie A champions Napoli as a free agent in the summer, De Bruyne returned to Manchester City on Thursday but had an evening to forget. The 34-year-old spent only 26 minutes on the pitch and had to watch Erling Haaland and Jeremy Doku find the net against his team.
Napoli were reduced to ten men in the 21st minute when Giovanni Di Lorenzo was given a straight red card for a foul on Haaland – and Conte chose to sacrifice his playmaker.
Conte clearly made the decision through gritted teeth but claimed the personnel and the system left him with little choice but to haul off De Bruyne. He said: “We were all left with a bitter taste in our mouths.
Kevin De Bruyne was substituted in the 26th minutes on his return to Man City. (Photo by Jan Kruger – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)
“It’s disappointing, we prepared for the match the way we played it in the first 20 minutes and the sending off changed it. I don’t want to say whether it was right or wrong, but for 20 minutes I saw a great attitude and I think City would have had a hard time against us.
“It’s already difficult to get out of here unscathed, but if you’re down to 10 men it becomes impossible.
“Sometimes the devil takes a turn, there’s a cruel twist of fate. Last year we didn’t have a sending off, today in the Champions League we did. It was the only thing I could do…
“I felt sorry for the boy, who we robbed of the satisfaction of playing against his old club. But I also robbed myself of the chance to count on him.
“In the first 20 minutes I had the feeling that we had prepared the match in the right way, going for the high goal. I’m sorry, these are games where a sending off ruins them and you can’t do the exact right thing.”
De Bruyne has scored two times in his four games for Napoli, including one on his debut with the Italian side beginning the season well domestically.
The Belgian who was part of the City squad that claimed Champions League glory back in 2023, left Manchester as arguably one of the greatest ever players to don the City shirt.
