Our first World Cup winner

I know I'm jumping the gun a bit here, but we're about to make our first signing of the Roberto Mancini era, our first signing of the decade, so forgive my being a bit excited about it.

And one of the main reasons for my excitement is that it marks another first: the first World Cup winner ever to play for Manchester City. Never before has anyone with a World Cup winner's medal played for City, never mind winning one while being a blue. We haven't even had anyone play for us who then went on to win a medal after having left. So this is a big deal. (Vieira will be the second player currently in the EPL with such a medal - guess the other in the comments.)

Patrick Vieira, of course, was part of the France side who triumphed in France '98. He was not a regular, but he played all of France's third group game against Denmark, and came on for the last fifteen minutes of the final against Brazil. Not a huge contribution, true, but not no contribution either, and certainly enough for the medal.

He's not, though, the first man with a World Cup winner's medal to be involved with City. In the 1995/96 season we were managed by Alan Ball - who won the World Cup with England - but we famously thought that a point was enough against Liverpool on final day and were relegated.

The holy grail is to have a player win the World Cup while playing for the club, something we've never really come close to. There was a time for indignation at the exclusion of Bert Trautmann from the victorious West Germany squad of 1954, but I think that's passed now. This time, though, we've got a decent shot: Robinho, Gareth Barry, Carlos Tévez and Nigel de Jong will all go and all have good chances of winning. We have no Spain internationals, but if Vieira does well enough to make the plane then we're in a good position.

Back to Vieira, and a similar topic: he is only the third player to have won the European Championship and then come to City. He was part of France's triumph in 2000, as was Nicolas Anelka - who joined us only two years later. The third is Peter Schmeichel, who won it with Denmark in 1992, a whole ten years before he joined Kevin Keegan's City (there are some parallels between our signing Schmeichel and Vieira - to be covered some other time.)

Then there's the Copa America. Again, nobody won it while playing for City, but two won it soon before joining us. Elano and Robinho both played for Brazil in their 2007 triumph - a few weeks before Elano signed, just over a year before Robinho did.

Finally, the African Cup of Nations - which starts this weekend - is an area where we have a very good record. For a start, it is the only international tournament I can find which has been won by a contemporary City player. Lucien Mettomo won the 2002 African Cup of Nations while at the club, and his Cameroon team-mate Marc-Vivien Foé joined City four months after their joint triumph. Both Mettomo and Foé had won it previously in 2000, before either of them joined City; and Hatem Trabelsi won it in 2004, two years before Stuart Pearce signed him.

There will be more, and more useful, Vieira stuff once we've actually signed him.