King Kev winning tactical battles on and off the pitch...

HAS Kevin De Bruyne finally won a battle of wills with Belgium boss Roberto Martinez?

Or has the former Wigan manager been planning his surprise switch of the City star all along?

The Blues ace, right, was man-of-the-match as Belgium saw off Brazil 2-1 and booked a place in the World Cup semi-finals.

And, far from coincidentally, that was the first time that De Bruyne had started a game at the finals playing in his club role as a transitional, attacking midfielder.

De Bruyne ran the show and crashed in a trademark arrow of a goal to celebrate the fact that Martinez had unleashed all of his pent-up genius.

There have been rumblings for the past nine months that the Belgium players were not happy with Martinez’s tactical set-up, with De Bruyne the most outspoken critic.

He did not directly say he was unhappy at being played in a deep position, but made it plain that he felt the team was too defensive and lacking tactical refinement.

That seemed to spill over into this World Cup, with De Bruyne subdued and under-used – until he was switched further forward as they trailed to Japan in the last 16, and ended up with a match-winning charge downfield.

Maybe that convinced Martinez that he needed to play De Bruyne as an attacking player, but the City man certainly made his case against Brazil.

Asked about his change of position, De Bruyne was diplomatic but also gave hints of how much he has become a leader in his national team. “I have to do what I have to do to win, I do not care where I have to play, and if I’m deep, it’s harder for me to be in front of goal but it does not matter,” he said. “Everyone was relaxed with the ball, without taking any risks, we sometimes wanted to go too fast but at other times we developed very good football. “In the field, I try to manage the team, to give directions to my team-mates.” Asked directly about Martinez’s tactical switch, which saw Marouane Fellaini and Axel Witsel form a holding pair to free up De Bruyne, he came up with quite an under-statement.

“We changed tactics a bit,” he said.

“We had problems with them, and in the second half Brazil adapted well tactically, but we created new opportunities, and after 2-1, we tried everything to win.

“It was a character test in the last quarter of an hour.”

Finally, De Bruyne has emerged as a World Cup star as well as being, arguably, the best player in the Premier League – and that can only be good news for City as well as Belgium.

In the field I try to manage the team, to give directions to my team-mates Kevin De Bruyne