Geovanni - full name Deiberson Mauricio Geovanni Gomez - became the first new addition to the City ranks following our historic promotion to the Premier League and also the first-ever Brazilian Tiger.

Signed on a two-year deal on the conclusion of his season's contract at Manchester City, he was regarded as one of Brazil's top prospects after his success at the 2000 Olympics in Australia and, as part of his four full international caps, was selected for their Copa America squad in 2001.

His only international goal came in a friendly against Bolivia in 2003.

Geo is a product of the youth set-up at Cruzeiro where, after a season on loan at America Mineiro, he was soon to establish a regular first team place at the Belo Horizonte club.

With current Chelsea boss Luiz Felipe Scolari as his coach, one of the highlights of Geo's four seasons with the Raposa (the Foxes) came in 2000 when they won the Brazilian Cup for the third time in their history.

With a reputation as a skilful attacking midfielder, Geo joined Barcelona for £11million in June 2001. At the time, Cruzeiro club president Jose Perrella de Oliveira Costa was quoted as saying: "He's a very quick player with good skill. He's one of the most complete players in Brazil."

After a promising start at the Nou Camp, he eventually lost out to Luis Enrique and Gabri de la Torre.

With Barca willing to offload in order to avoid exceeding their quota of non-EU players, Geo was allowed to join Benfica in January 2003.

He scored 17 goals in 94 appearances whilst at the Estadio da Luz, notably being an influential member of the teams that won the Portuguese Cup in 2004 followed by their first league title in 11 years in 2005.

When his contract with the Lisbon giants expired in 2006, despite reported interest from Arsenal, Everton, RC Lens and Udinese, he opted for a move back to Cruzeiro.

After a year in the familiar surroundings of the Estadio Mineirao, Geo was tempted to test his skills in the Premier League and, after a two-week trial at Portsmouth, it was new Manchester City boss Sven-Goran Eriksson who captured his signature to make him the first Brazilian to play in the blue half of Manchester.

He had already endeared himself to the Eastlands faithful by scoring a diving header for Benfica to end Manchester United's involvement in the Champions League in 2005-06.

Geo's hero status was soon cemented with the clincher in the opening day win at West Ham United then, in only his third appearance, a spectacular winner in the home Manchester derby.

He went on to make a total of 23 appearances for City before being deemed surplus to requirements by new manager Mark Hughes.

Geo soon wrote his name into Tigers history with our first-ever top flight goal. A superb left-foot strike sparked an opening victory against Fulham at a packed KC Stadium.