City Watch: O'Reilly's time to shine in the States?

The World Cup begins this week with multiple Manchester City players ready to represent their countries at the biggest tournament in international football. 

Once the competition commences, I will be continuing the City Watch column as well as writing a piece on England’s progress throughout the tournament.

For now though, I wanted to highlight a few players representing their country from the City team. 

As we all know, Marc Guehi, James Trafford and John Stones will all be playing for England this summer, but the player I wanted to talk about is Nico O’Reilly.

Nico has had an astonishing year at the Etihad, breaking into the first team early on in the season and consistently putting in world class performances. 

His two goals to win us the Carabao Cup Final back in March were a compliment to his fine form.

I’ve spoken about it before, but his versatility and his ability to play in multiple different positions yet still put in fantastic displays sums up why Thomas Tuchel picked him for the national team. 

Off the back of this, Nico also won the Premier League young player of the season award, and I’m sure he’ll show his endless talent in the States.

Abdukodir Khusanov will be representing Uzbekistan in the country’s first ever qualification to a World Cup. 

The 22 year old is seen as a bit of a cult hero and one of the main reasons his country were able to qualify this summer. 

He had a rocky start when he signed for City 18 months ago, but this season he’s been unbelievable, especially towards the end of the season when him and Guehi played together in a defensive partnership. 

The first Uzbek player to play in the Premier League and will now be part of a team who will feature in his country’s first World Cup.

Erling Haaland will be part of a Norway side who reached the tournament for the first time since 1998, and after almost 30 years without a World Cup appearance, they’ll face a ‘group of death’ with both France and current AFCON holders, Senegal, to play.

Despite their history, these teams will have to keep Haaland quiet, an area where a lot of squads have fallen down as we know. 

Erling scored 16 goals in Norway’s eight qualification games to help them on their way to the USA.

Rodri will also be taking part in the tournament for Spain after his nation won the Euros against England two years ago. 

After his ACL injury last season, the 29 year old had a long road to recovery and has improved as this season went on.

With the tournament only a few days away, the excitement for beer gardens and sunny World Cup weather is in full flow. 

England don’t play their first match until Wednesday of next week, so the first column will be more of a preview, but despite that, I’m sure there will be a lot to discuss.