Mateo Kovacic performs hilarious initiation song in front of Man City team-mates as Erling Haaland reacts

Mateo Kovacic performed an initiation song in front of Manchester City team-mates this week - and it was memorable in more ways than one.

The Croatian midfielder joined City from Chelsea last month for an initial fee of £25 million, signing a four-year contract.

He is yet to make his debut for Pep Guardiola's side, who have yet to get their pre-season campaign underway. The reigning treble winners take on Japanese side Yokohama F Marinos in Tokyo on Sunday.

The 29-year-old is currently City's only senior signing, with the deal being completed on June 27. He will take the number eight shirt vacated by Ilkay Gundogan's move to Barcelona.

But his status as the club's only summer signing meant he had to face one of football's most daunting tasks alone - performing an initiation song in front of his new team-mates.

There have been some classics over the years, with John Terry once performing an excellent rendition of Ben E King's 'Stand By Me' in front of the Aston Villa squad.

But there are others that fall on the opposite end of the rankings. Former England winger Stewart Downing even claimed he had heard of players rejecting transfers due to the prospect of an initiation song.

Kovacic performs Man City initiation song

Kovacic stepped up to get the dreaded tradition out of the way once City had landed in Tokyo.

He opted for Steve Holy's 'Good Morning Beautiful', released in 2001.

A 15-second clip of the song was posted by team-mate Erling Haaland, who was celebrating his 23rd birthday on the same day.

🎤 Mateo Kovačić pic.twitter.com/E7jqrELk2X

— Croatian Football (@CroatiaFooty) July 21, 2023

He captioned the post: "Thanks for the birthday song", although we're not completely sure whether it was tongue-in-cheek or not.

It certainly wasn't in the category of best-performed songs ever, with the midfielder struggling to get through the track as he desperately tried to find the right tune.

However, it got plenty of laughs from City team-mates and staff - Kovacic laughed along too - and a round of applause at the end.

To be honest, that's about as much as you can hope for from an initiation song.