World Cup Fever!

Here we go. Another World Cup. Surely this is the year England win it - he says for the 11th time since he was born........

One of the years I didn't say that was 1994 when England didn't qualify thanks to one of the worst refereeing decisions of all time that cost Graham Taylor his job (Referee! Referee! What is going on here? You know, you know!). Phil Neal was assistant manager to Taylor and 10 days after this match would be City manager after Bobby Goulds resignation, following a 5-1 defeat at QPR. Future City player Carlton Palmer was in the England team and Big Ron, who would replace Neal as City manager was commentating for ITV.

As for the 1994 World Cup itself, City's main interest came from Phil Babb, playing for the Republic of Ireland. He had a cracking World Cup and on the back of that signed for Liverpool for 3.6 million in September 1994, becoming the most expensive defender in Britain at the time. Liverpool signed John Scales for a similar fee days later but that record stood until Rio Ferdinand's move to Leeds from West Ham for 18 million.

Roy "Who needs Cantona?" Wegerle was also playing for City but had torn his ACL 4 months before the tournament playing for City at Newcastle in the 2-0 FA Cup defeat. He had surgery and miraculously made the USA roster squad and made 4 substitute appearances.

Post World Cup City were interested in signing 2 players, centre half Alexei Lalas and forward Cobi Jones. Presumably Lalas was lined up as a replacement for Babb but he decided on Italian club Padova instead. Cobi Jones did sign though, at the time being a soccer football player at UCLA. He went on to play 24 games for City in 94/95, scoring 2 goals. If I remember correctly he was often played out of position on the wing for much of that time. Jones left City for a brief spell at Vasco De Gama but then returned home and played 306 games for LA Galaxy, scoring 70 goals. He went on to play in the 98 and 02 World Cups and has the USA's all time appearance record with 164 caps.

Onto USA 26 and City obviously have HWWW and BTA representing USA and Ghana respectively. There are also 4 ex-City players there - Viktor Gyokores, Dom Hyam, Duckens Nazom and Jordan Henderson.

Big Vik could complete a bonkers few years for him if he wins the Golden Boot, which isn't beyond the realms of possibility. Hyam worked his way into the Scotland squad with some good performances for Wrexham. Nazom, who was born a couple of months before USA 94, is captaining Haiti and is their all time record scorer with 44 goals in in 82 appearances. He played 21 games in 2017 for City whilst on loan from Wolves, scoring 6 goals. Jordan Henderson also played for City on loan back in 2009, featuring 10 times. Its unlikely he'll feature for England though.

UPDATE! James has pointed out I missed off Adonnis Kastaneer. He played 12 games for City between 2019 and 2021, scoring 1 goal. Kastaneer is representing Curacao for who he has played 27 times, scoring 9 goals.

Below is when some of those City players past and present are playing. Enjoy the World Cup and try and get some sleep at some point!