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Fabio is smiling. He always smiles – the beaming Brazilian grin perhaps his most distinctive feature after the mop of curly hair – but this one’s a little wider than usual.

Sat at Cardiff City’s training ground, the full-back has been reminded of an interview he gave when still at Manchester United. Sat alongside his twin brother, Rafael, the pair were asked whether they would prefer to keep a clean sheet or score a goal. Unlike his brother, Fabio opted for scoring.

“I think it’s in our blood. It’s in me,” he says of his fondness of being on the front foot . “It’s what a lot of Brazilian full-backs are like. I like to go forward and enjoy the attacks. I was born with it and when you grow up, when you go to the academies, the coaches would just be about being with the ball, going forward, about attacking and scoring goals. It’s natural.”

(Image: Andrew James)

And it has made him a natural favourite at Cardiff . Flair players have always been the crowd-pleasers, the ones to catch the eye and imagination and the 25-year-old is no different. With his swashbuckling, adventurous play from full-back coupled with the kind of passion that has always gone down well with the Bluebirds regulars – especially when there’s been some tough times – the dynamic defender has becoming something of a cult hero . The smile appears again.

“Yeah, I’ve noticed it,” he laughs. “Some of the other lads have given me some stick and Matt Connolly is always on to me because the fans sing my name when I do something in a game. There was one match when I had a shot and it went miles away from the goal, but everyone still chanted my name. I think that was then I knew they liked me and it’s a great feeling, something every player wants. That’s why I love playing here.”

(Image: Andrew James)

After a difficult start to life in South Wales, Cardiff has loved having Fabio. More so this season when the appreciation has stretched beyond being a bundle of overlapping energy where mistakes were forgiven but often costly.

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Watching the joyful character at times last year came with frustration. On the one hand it was easy to see the kind of aspects in his game that persuaded Manchester United to beat off competition from Real Madrid and Arsenal to sign him and his brother as teenagers and led his former Old Trafford boss Sir Alex Ferguson to describe him as simply “an excellent footballer”. On the other, the lack of maturity and positional sense would heap pressure on team-mates and contributed to a season of intermittent appearances.

(Image: VANDERLEI ALMEIDA/AFP/Getty Images)

Yet there has been a sense Fabio has grown up this year, finding a responsibility to go with his consistency without losing any of that appeal that not only makes him popular, but a real talent at Championship level.

“When I was a junior I was a striker,” he reveals. “I’d play up front, midfield, wing, No.10, so in my mind I want to score and, like I say, it is natural with Brazilian full-backs to want to attack. It’s different here for full-backs and I’ve learned more. I think I’m more solid now. I think it’s fair to say I have changed because I have worked very hard on the pitch with the manager. He and Trolls (Paul Trollope) talk to me often, how I have to position myself and it’s helped me. I know the importance of clean sheets because it gets you results.

“So I think I’m perhaps a better player now than when I joined. I’m more rounded. When you get older, you get more responsible.”

There’s still the hot headed nature of his game, something he admits he is trying to work on but is part of his on-the-pitch persona, something in contrast to his quiet, homely character off it.

Such maturity has come with playing games. Despite being at United for six years, winning Premier League medals, playing in FA Cup semi-finals and even starting the Champions League final against Barcelona, Fabio was rarely a regular. In fact, if he plays against Ipswich for his 55th Bluebirds appearance this weekend, he will be one shy of equalling his number of United outings.

(Image: Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)

It’s why he felt the need to leave the Theatre of Dreams when Cardiff offered the chance in January 2014, though he admits it was leaving his brother rather than United which was the hardest part of the decision.

“It was very difficult, a very tough point in my career,” he says. “I had been at Manchester United but I had been in and out, never really consistently playing games; I could never play five or six games in a row and I don’t think I ever got my confidence really going like I do now.

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“But it was leaving my brother that was the toughest because I had lived with him all my life. We joined Fluminense when we were 11 and had to move from home and into a house for players. We were the youngest there, we had to protect each other and look out for each other and it made the relationship stronger even for twins.

“When we moved to United we were in a big house together and we stayed there. We did not spend much time apart at all, we always stuck together and we did everything together – everyone at United would laugh at us but they understood.”

As did Ferguson, even when Fabio followed his brother off the field and to hospital when he suffered concussion in a Premier League match against Blackpool. Fabio, a substitute, was meant to have replaced him.

“He wasn’t right and it scared me,” he recalls. “But Sir Alex was fine, he loved it to be fair because he understood the relationship.”

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Even if he didn’t always understand just who was who.

“He used to get us mixed up, but everyone did,” says Fabio as the smile returns. “We were there six years but still some of the staff couldn’t tell us apart. Sir Alex came in half time once and started given me a row but it was meant for my brother. Sir Alex would say: ‘Don’t sit together you two, move apart, you’re killing me!’.”

Fabio’s wedding ring – he married Barbara at 18 before moving to Manchester – was said to be the only way Ferguson could tell one from the other while the United fans even had a joint chant named Viva Da Silvas with the lyrics: ‘When they’re on the pitch, don’t know which one’s which’.

(Image: ofabio3/Instagram)

Fabio wanted to make a name for himself, though, and is intent on doing so at Cardiff, despite initial set backs.

“There came a point I had to make a decision: do I want to follow my career or follow my brother I had to choose so I chose coming to Cardiff,” he says, Rafael having left Old Trafford himself for Lyon last summer, though he stays the first person Fabio speaks to after games.

“It was great playing with him but sometimes it made it harder. If he made a mistake in a game I felt it. I could be full of confidence, playing well, but if he did something wrong it would affect me, I wouldn’t feel right, I’d share his disappointment.

“I had a chance to stay at United but I wasn’t going to play so what was the point of staying there just to keep with my brother but not play football? It was tough but I needed to do it.

(Image: JEAN-PHILIPPE KSIAZEK/AFP/Getty Images)

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“It was difficult to begin with. I came when the club was in the Premier League but I felt we had a great chance to stay up. It didn’t happen but I was never going to feel sorry for myself, I had to work hard and do everything I can to get back into the Premier League with the club.”

Fabio is adamant there is a real chance despite a recent dip in performance levels, saying the end of the confidence drain that came with relegation is being felt by players and supporters alike.

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“I want to get Cardiff in the Premier League for them,” he adds. “They have shown they like me and I think I have to respond by helping to club promotion.

“That is my ambition. I have medals from the Premier League, I have played in the Champions League final, but I was not playing regularly. If we can do this maybe it will be my biggest achievement.”

And if it comes by him helping keep clean sheets rather than scoring goals? Fabio smiles again.

“I think I’d give a different answer now.”