mike o said:
They love him now.
When he was younger he was a nightmare,similar to Balotelli as Dave said
Lol, not at all similar to Balotelli. I guess your Belgian mates are Brugge-fans who've loathed Kompany because he came from the Anderlecht-academy, their hated rivals.
Kompany was very respected at a young age because he talked so much sense and was mature beyond his years which earned him invitations of multiple variety-talkshows on Belgian TV-stations. For most neutral fans, like me, Kompany was always in highregard.
Kompany came in the Belgian side aged 17 or 18 and came in the worst Belgian side in history outshining all of the old guard immediatly. Some of these old hands didn't take to kindly to the fact being in the shadow of a kid and started making a fuzz because Kompany didn't wear a tie like the rest of them with his suit and other minor issues.
Kompany was the first of this new 'gold'-generation of young Belgians breaking through and some of the older hands seemed to have problems with the interest of the public in these new young superstars so a couple of years ago all kind of stories were leaking out. Things that normally wouldn't leave the dressing room. Clearly some of these disgruntled old players tried via the media to influence the public opinion.
Anyway just look up the nutcase Stijnen. The national goalie of a few years ago recently fired by his team Club Brugge because he was activily posting on a fanforum under an alias boasting about himself and talking shit about the young goalie who he had lost his place to.