That’s right, on this day in 1987 Samir came into the world, so all today we’ll be focusing on him through the medium of videos, words and pictures.
City’s Gallic star was last seen on duty on the post-season US Tour where his stunning brace helped to see off Chelsea in the exhibition match at the Yankee Stadium.
Now holidaying in far flung climes at some exotic corner of the globe (at least, according to his Twitter timeline), Nasri is hoping his injury troubles are behind him and that an unbroken run in the team will fire City to glory this season.
Samir seemed to hit his stride in the closing weeks of last season, earning the Man of the Match award in the win over Newcastle in March and scoring the crucial opening goal in the FA Cup semi-final against Chelsea.
Our Marseille-born playmaker reports back to the first-team training on 5 July ahead of his third season as a Blue.
With his peak years still laid out before him, this could be a big campaign for the midfielder as he looks to sure up his seat on the plane to Brazil 2014 with France.
Nasri had a year-long exodus from Didier Deschamps’ squad after Euro 2012 but was included in the original squads for the recent end of season friendlies.
Although he had to pull out through injury, he’s expected to be involved in France’s last few qualifiers ahead of next summer’s tournament.
Plenty of motivation for 2013/14, then!
We’ll be bringing you a series of Nasri-flavoured nuggets on the website today as we doff our caps to the birthday boy.
