We’re a small nation with pretty people... you’ve got to love us!
ICELAND STUNNED ENGLAND... NOW FOR MESSI
FOR anyone who couldn’t believe what they were seeing two years ago and wondered if the fairy tale continued, here’s what happened next: Iceland carried on winning. Well, they were beaten by France in the quarter-finals of Euro 2016 but it failed to halt their progress. And they lost one of their two coaches but the one who doubles as a dentist proved able to keep the nation smiling. Iceland topped a qualifying group involving Croatia, Ukraine and Turkey, and rolled into Moscow yesterday ahead of their first-ever fixture in the World Cup finals which just happens to be against Argentina, Lionel Messi and all. A humble football team from a volcanic island in the North Atlantic with a population roughly the same as Coventry’s continues to charm the world. ‘You can’t help but love Iceland,’ shrugged Heimir Hallgrimsson, who took sole control of the team when co-coach Lars Lagerback stepped aside two years ago. ‘We haven’t attacked anyone and we haven’t been to war. Only the Cod War and nobody got hurt there. ‘We are a small nation with pretty people. You can’t help but love us.’ Roy Hodgson and Joe Hart might disagree. Hodgson salvaged his reputation at Crystal Palace but Hart has never been quite the same since. Images of the 2-1 defeat in Nice which make England cringe will never fade in Iceland. ‘It is a moment of our sporting history that will always be with us,’ said Gudni Bergsson, the former Tottenham and Bolton centre-half who is now chairman of the Icelandic FA. ‘To come from behind to beat England and because the English game always had such a big place in our hearts. A lot of us follow it closely with our own favourite teams in the Premier League.
‘To beat England at their own game, so to speak, and qualify for the last eight, that was a great moment. We won’t ever tire of watching those goals.
‘It is always difficult to follow success like that and we faced our problems but give credit to Heimir and his players because to be at a World Cup for the first time is fantastic and as a nation we have been inspired by the performances.’
This classic underdog story has acquired a global following. Bergsson has fielded pledges of support from far and wide, and particularly Italy where many fans adopted another team in blue since their beloved Azzurri failed to make it to Russia 2018.
Five thousand vociferous fans are expected to bring their unique brand of thunderclap support the Spartak Stadium today, although Hallgrimsson will not be popping out to meet them in the pub for a pre-match chat about team selection as he has been known to do.
‘It is just one of the things we do different,’ the coach explained. ‘Because of the population, we know each other more closely than other teams know their fans. There is this closeness and trust and it makes it possible to go to the pub and visit the fans club.
‘For other teams this is strange and probably couldn’t happen but it shows the unity between the fans and the respect we have for them. There are positives to being so few and we try to maximise that.
‘We can see to them it is more than a football team. It’s part of them. We gave them ownership and you can see it in their eyes. It means more than just a general guy going to support his team.’
It wasn’t always the way. Captain Aron Gunnarsson recalled the days when they could not sell out the 15,000-capacity stadium in Reykjavik and yet when the heroes returned from the Euros, they were greeted by 100,000 at the airport.
The script might have come from Hollywood. Only don’t mention miracles because that’s when the mild-mannered Hallgrimsson gently takes issue.
‘This team has been very stable for four years,’ he said yesterday, when the word first surfaced.
‘We are 20th in the FIFA rankings list. We have won very important games. We have won our qualifying group. We deserve to be here at the World Cup. So, we don’t see it as a miracle.
‘It is down to good work by the FA and the staff and especially the players because no team can win matches without good players.
‘It is about knowing our strengths and weaknesses and playing to them. It shows if you work together as one unit anything is achievable.
‘If someone is surprised then they don’t know much about the Icelandic football team.’
And if anyone is looking for the next chapter in this fairy tale then they had better tune in. Iceland are out to stop Messi without the use of miracles.