It’s come a year too late to take the World Cup by storm, but Fabio seems to think that he has found the right formation at last. It was quite a surprise as “Mr 4-4-2” launched a 4-3-3 formation on the world of football. Pundits were ready for change by England’s mastermind – there were wild rumours of a 1-1-1-2-2-1-1-1 formation to give the team greater backbone. Instead, Fabio opted for the revolutionary 4-3-3 formation and made Wales pay heavily for underestimating the impact of the new style. Former England manager, Graham Taylor, referred to it as a master stroke.

Of course, it’s early days and there will always be confounders. Sceptics are saying that it won’t be long before Fabio is telling us that the Isle of Man made it very difficult for our 4-3-3 formation and that a 0-0 draw at Wembley was not as bad as it looked.

With a friendly against Ghana to follow the victory over Wales, football fans everywhere are getting excited by the prospect of seeing a classic. It comes in the same week as Russia travel to Qatar for a friendly when the 2018 and 2022 World Cup hosts lock horns. FootballCynic has been invited to the after match party and will let readers know if anyone is heard to say “We only had to bribe him 10,000 dollars for his vote; you paid far too much”.