World Cup 2010: Sky Blue links

Vital Coventry has been scouring the record books to look for tenuous links between Coventry City and the greatest football show on earth, which kicks off on Friday with hosts South Africa playing Mexico.

The hopes of a nation rest on Fabio Capello and his men of course and the England coach will be ably assisted by a player whose big break in the game came courtesy of the Sky Blues and then manager Bobby Gould, who plucked Stuart Pearce out of non-league football and straight into the first team at Highfield Road.

The England squad contains Coventry City's 2003/04 player of the season, left-back Stephen Warnock who made a massive impression during a year on loan from Liverpool.

In the group stages of the competition he may come up against a sometime team-mate from that season.

Yazid Mansouri, who made 15 Sky Blues appearances in 2003/04, remains a key figure for the Algeria side who face Capello's men in their second game.

Elsewhere, the links are pretty thin on the ground.

City have recently been linked with Richard Garcia, who is part of the Australian squad while the name of Steve Mokone, the first black South African footballer to play in Europe when he joined the club in 1955, has been widely invoked during the build-up to this historic tournament.

Any more Sky Blue links to the World Cup? Use the menus at the top of the site to contact the editor.

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