Former Man City winger throws himself into 'daunting' coaching challenge

Trevor Sinclair has headed east again for a major tournament.

It is 22 years since the former Manchester City winger was one of England's better players in Japan for the 2002 World Cup that ended with David Seaman's despairing dive failing to keep out Ronaldinho's winner for Brazil in the quarter-final. After he finished his playing career, he spent six years in Dubai learning the ropes of coaching and media.

And, after several years of leaning towards the latter, Sinclair is now in Qatar working as a specialist coach for an India side managed by Igor Stimac and looking to upset the odds in the Asian Cup. There is only a slim chance of the team progressing even if they beat Syria in their final group game on Tuesday after defeats to Australia and Uzbekistan, but it has been a terrific experience for Sinclair.

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Stimac is a former West Ham teammate and Sinclair also worked with Joe Morrison during his time with Dubai, who put him back in touch with Stimac when he heard he was looking for a coaching challenge. Having previously shied away from such roles, Sinclair felt like the time was right to start pursuing them and received an offer after giving his feedback on some videos that the manager had sent him to analyse.

"One of the reasons I probably didn't go and do some football in India when I was in Dubai was because I'm a family man and I didn't like leaving them in a foreign country for a week at a time so didn't go to India then," he told the Manchester Evening News. "Now my youngest is 18 so I've done my best to make sure I'm always around and bringing the boys up, now they