Here at Autocar, we can do football just as well as anyone. Which is why we’re most displeased that, with the 2018 event upon us, nobody’s yet called on us to take part in anything World Cup-related.

So we’ve decided to take matters into our own hands. We’re staging our own competition – a World Cup of Used Cars, to be precise – in which we’ve given each competing nation a worthy representative, one that’s made in that country or connected with it in an important (read: potentially tenuous) way.

We’ve then sorted each country into the correct group, as per the World Cup draw, and let them play to their strengths and reveal their weaknesses. Some will shine brightly in the Russian sun and some will limp off in ignominy.

Each winner and runner-up goes through to a quarter-final, then a semi and then, of course, the final – all in the same order as in the real tournament. Oh yes, we’re doing this properly. So without further ado, let’s star t those engines and get this championship under way: