Pep Guardiola indicated that Kevin De Bruyne should not play for his country at the beginning of next month unless he is fully clear of the ankle injury that he returned to Manchester City with.
Pep Guardiola said: “He trained at the beginning of the week and today he could not train. He has to be fit, he has to be good. In certain age of the players they always have disturbing pain. You play free, free, free – then it is difficult at some parts of your career, but it depends on how you allow to do it and then do it. We will see. Like all the players, when they are fit they are going to the national team when they are selected. Otherwise they will stay here if they are not fit, or they are injured. Kevin and Phil [Foden] came back injured from the national team and when they are fit they will come back. When they are not fit they will not come back.”
The midfielder picked up an ankle injury in Belgium’s last-16 win over Portugal at the European Championship and later declared it a “miracle” that he had featured days later in the quarter-final defeat to Italy given that there was a tear in his ankle ligaments. That same issue left him unable to complete a full training session in his first two weeks back at the Etihad, and after training this week with the squad he was unable to participate in Friday’s session to leave him as a doubt for the Premier League match with Norwich. Guardiola cannot stop the player being called up, but said that anyone who was not fit or injured should not be leaving Manchester.
