All 32 teams competing in the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar announced their squads earlier this week. Manchester City have sixteen players taking part for their nations in the 22nd edition of the competition which is for the first time being held in a middle eastern country throughout its entire history.
Let’s try to predict how three of those 16 players will fare in this year’s World Cup which commences this weekend.
Bernardo Silva (Portugal)
The Portuguese midfield ace has had a terrific start this season. The midfield maestro has done well to score two goals and create five assist in the Premier League so far. Furthermore, he has been consistently averaging 1.0 shots, 1.1 dribbles, 1.4 key passes and 1.6 tackles per game in the English first division (stats via whoscored) which proves that he is in great form recently. Silva will have a guaranteed starting place in the national squad.
Portugal will go up against Ghana, Uruguay and South Korea, so Silva will do everything he is capable of to set up his teammates in front of the goal to help them qualify further into the competition.
Kevin De Bruyne (Belgium)
De Bruyne has had a brilliant start to this Campaign as he has found the back of the net on three occasions and created twelve assists over 18 appearances so far this season. He has been a key player for Guardiola’s midfield department and rightfully deserves a call-up to represent his country in the World Cup. He has done well to engineer as many chances as he can for his attackers in the Etihad Club showcasing his creativity and he will be doing the same for the national squad as well.
Belgium will face Canada, Morocco and the 2018 finalist Croatia in Group F, so De Bruyne will be looking to give out his best performances to help his team on the road to the finals.
Phil Foden (England)
From achieving the Under-17s glory in 2017 at India and then helping England reach the Euro 2020 finals, Phil Foden was bound to be on board of the plane flying to Qatar. Having earned 18 caps after his international debut two years ago, there are a lot of expectations from this young individual who has won four Premier League titles with Pep Guardiola for the Sky Blues. He has scored eight goals and produced three assists for Manchester City so far this season and he will be looking to bring forth the same magic onto the attacking end of the field for his national squad.
However, it would be difficult to say if he’ll be named in the starting XI after Gareth Southgate named a strong squad including forward stars like Jack Grealish, Mason Mount, James Maddison, Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford and Raheem Sterling all fighting for a place in the match-day squad.
