Man City can continue transfer strategy with dream Euros repeat

There's nothing like a major international tournament for players capturing global attention in a way they never would otherwise.

As someone pointed out recently, if you only watched him without seeing any club football you might be tempted to think Xherdan Shaqiri was one of the best players in the world. From James Rodriguez to Enzo Fernandez, individual performances on such a big stage can be the perfect audition to earn a big-money move.

Manchester City are not generally as reactionary in the transfer market, scouting their players for months and years rather than lumping in on the breakout star of a tournament. However, they have still picked up some excellent signings on the back of them.

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Josko Gvardiol was a standout performer at the Qatar World Cup in 2022, helping Croatia to third place while only 20 years old. Having to wear a mask for some games helped to pick the defender out, but even still he solidified his position as one of the most exciting prospects in the game.

Seven months later, City had signed him up as the second-most expensive defender of all time to add to a defence that Pep Guardiola had held up as responsible for winning the Blues the Treble. However sorry the club were to see Aymeric Laporte leave, Gvardiol proved invaluable during the run-in and his potential remains sky-high.

Even more impressive was the signing of Oleksandr Zinchenko for less than £2m in 2016. Aged 19, he had just played all three of Ukraine's matches at Euro 2016 but was still a signing that was firmly under the radar in Pep Guardiola's