Creating the Iceland miracle Rory Smith

Uncovers a football revolution that has helped Iceland to ditch their tag as Europe’s whipping boys.

In the heart of downtown Reykjavik, the final touches are being put to the fan park that will occupy Ingolfstorg Square for the next month. There will be a big screen, of course, broadcasting every single match of Euro 2016, and the usual slew of food vans and mobile bars.

Alongside the ordinary paraphernalia of a national party, the city council has also set up a number of games that it hopes will ‘‘introduce children to football’’. It is a measure that neatly illustrates how an island in the north Atlantic, with a population of 325,000 and a history as one of Europe’s serial whipping boys, has been able to transform itself into a standard-bearer for the underdogs.

In a little more than a week’s time, Iceland will become the smallest nation to compete in a leading finals. It is the culmination of almost two decades of work, a story that neatly maps the country’s political and economic fortunes: from boom to bust and, cautiously, back again. It is one that might serve as a blueprint to every other also-ran in football. It is one that proves the worth of no child being left behind.

‘‘In larger countries, you do not have to worry about coaching all of the kids,’’ says Siggi Eyjolfsson, the 42-year-old who could lay claim to being the most significant figure in Iceland’s journey to France.

‘‘You know there will always be some good ones coming through, just because you have so many people.

‘‘We could not do that in Iceland.’’

When Eyjolfsson was appointed as his country’s first fulltime technical director in 2002, it became his job to make sure that they did just that. When he took up the position, Iceland’s coaching qualifications were not recognised by Uefa; children were being taught by enthusiastic volunteers. It was his mission to change that.

‘‘At the beginning, it was just me in the department,’’ he says. ‘‘We did not have much of a budget.’’

The measures he took, though, had a dramatic impact. He employed a raft of coach educators to run courses, staging them at weekends so that coaches did not have to take time off work.

The results were spectacular. Iceland now has more than 850 coaches with their Uefa A, B or Pro Licences, or one for every 500 people in the country.

Iceland’s climate, too, presented an issue. Because of the severe winter, the football season can run only for four months of the year.

The Icelandic FA recognised that new facilities were required, and so in 2000 built the first of 11 ‘‘football houses’’ – vast, indoor structures containing state-of-theart pitches and training facilities.

‘‘We were one of the first clubs to have a football house,’’ says Borghildur Sigurdardottir, chair of Breidablik. It has paid off: not just with a title but in the players they have produced. In recent years, Breidablik have sold 19 players to foreign clubs.

‘‘We also had this idea that we wanted to give local players a chance in our first team, rather than searching for more expensive foreign players,’’ he says.

If much of Iceland’s planning required the sort of investment only made possible by the country’s banking boom in the early years of the century then the fruit of all that labour was only harvested with the bust of 2007.

The rise and the fall played their part in the little miracle. ‘‘Most of the players were born between 1989 and 1995,’’ Eyjolfsson says. ‘‘They were the first generation to benefit from the facilities.’’ In Iceland, they are determined they will not be the last.

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