Unsung heroes behind historic Treble success

MOST people watching the Champions League final saw another heartache for Kevin De Bruyne, cruelly forced off in the biggest game in club football for the second time in three years

- SIMON BAJKOWSKI

De Bruyne was obviously gutted, but there was a happiness from him and many at City that he had actually made it onto the pitch.

As an emotional Pep Guardiola told De Bruyne afterwards that 'we did it, it spoke to the last two months as well as the seven years they had spent together.

It was in the second leg of the quarter-final against Bayern Munich that De Bruyne's hamstring went. He was substituted in the final few minutes of the 1-1 draw in mid-April and the easiest treatment for him would have been six weeks on the sidelines.

Instead, with the full support of the player and Guardiola, the performance team - comprising more than 30 staff in total - put together a plan that involved daily ultrasound scans, strength markers, individual training, and cherrypicking games in order to try and navigate the player through the Treble tilt despite his injury.

By the time he pulled up in Istanbul, De Bruyne had monstered Arsenal in the league, scored at the Bernabeu and created both goals in the FA Cup final; the only irony was that the week before the Champions League final was the best he had felt in the two months since he got injured.

De Bruyne may not have been able to finish the job, but that he had made it so far was a triumph for both the player and everyone involved in getting him there.

City are well aware that luck played a part in them having a relatively low number of injuries through the season - you need some to win a Treble but the treatment of De Bruyne shows how much intelligence and expertise also went into managing the squad.

There is a reason why chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak praised the medical team as 'phenomenal, unheralded heroes' when discussing the unprecedented success for City over the last 12 months.

There was an internal discussion from the performance team last summer to try to get to the bottom of whether City do indeed start slowly.