Iceland heads to the World Cup

Leading the march of the unheralded teams at the 2016 European Championship, Iceland provided a warm, feel-good story that few believed would last beyond those four glorious weeks in France.

The smallest nation — totaling around 330,000 inhabitants — ever to qualify for the tournament had reached the quarterfinals, famously bloodying the nose of England along the way. Their fans’ “thunderclap” war chant became the soundtrack of that summer and would soon spread through the continent.

How could Iceland’s national team ever top that?

It turns out that was just the start of this soccer fairytale, not the end.

On Monday, Iceland’s players went a step further by qualifying for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, ensuring the Nordic country’s presence on the sport’s grandest stage for the first time.

A 2-0 win over Kosovo in Reykjavik prompted wild celebrations that spilled into the city center.

Hours after the game, the team took to a stage at Ingolfstorg Square in downtown Reykjavik in front of around 5,000 cheering fans. The players — led by bearded captain Aron Gunnarsson — danced and, of course, performed one more rendition of the thunderclap to the backdrop of a beating drum.

“Some people consider this the biggest single event in the history of Icelandic sport,” Klara Bjartmarz, general secretary of the Icelandic Football Association, told AP.