Upstart Iceland refuses to melt
Rejection of Messi’s penalty kick preserves underdogs’ 1-1 draw
MOSCOW — They came, they saw, but they refused to be conquered.
If anyone still doubted whether Iceland belongs in this summer’s World Cup, those doubts faded Saturday in the split second it took goalkeeper Hannes Halldorsson to dive to his right and bat down Lionel Messi’s penalty shot, preserving a 1-1 draw with Argentina.
“When you go to the World Cup as a goalkeeper, you have certain dream scenarios,” Halldorsson said. “And a penalty from Messi in the first game is definitely one of them.
“When the penalty was given I thought, ‘OK, this is going to be my moment.’”
He could have been speaking for his entire country, the smallest ever to qualify for a World Cup. Iceland arrived in Russia to find fifth-ranked Argentina and Messi, perhaps the best player of his generation, waiting for them. Yet, rather than shrinking from the challenge, the team, like its goalkeeper, embraced it.
“We have a goal,” defender Ari Skulason said. “We want to go through. We want to stay as long as possible in Russia. And this was a great start for us.”
It wasn’t an artistic one, with Iceland sitting back and absorbing pressure, and Argentina attacking in waves. Argentina had the ball 72 percent of the time, completed more than five times as many passes as Iceland and took 26 shots — with Messi getting 11, two more than Iceland had as a team.
But only one of those shots found the back of the net, with Sergio Aguero stopping sharply in the middle of the box and surprising Halldorsson with a leftfooted bullet in the 19th minute.
Alfred Finnbogason tied the score four minutes later, gathering the rebound after a save by Wily Caballero and poking the ball past the Argentine keeper.
Iceland hunkered down after that, countering Argentina’s superior talent with superior organization and tenacity.
“If we go one-on-one everywhere around the pitch, you don’t need to ask who is going to win that game,” Iceland coach Heimir Hallgrimsson said. “If we would like to get points or if we would like to win against teams like Argentina, we have to play a special way.
“It is more enjoyable to play this way and achieve something than play in a different way and don’t achieve anything.”
Added Skulason: “Everybody knows how we play.”
Everybody knows Iceland’s story, too: A team of overachievers with more tenacity than talent, coached by a part-time dentist from a country with about as many people as Anaheim, it beat England and played Portugal to a draw in the European Championships two years ago.
Yet, in most people’s minds Iceland remained a gutty underdog fighting above its weight class.
“I hope it never stops because it always helps us,” Halldorsson said. “It gives us an advantage if there’s a big opponent and they can’t help but underestimate us a little bit.
“There’s no secret. There’s a bunch of guys who like each other. The bond is strong. We know our abilities. We also know our weaknesses, so we play to our strength.”
So by the time Messi stepped to the penalty spot in the 64th minute Saturday after Hordur Magnusson pushed Aguero in the back to draw a foul in the box, the Iceland goalkeeper had run the possibilities through his mind a million times.
“I did some homework. I knew this was a situation that could come up,” Halldorsson said.
Messi took four choppy steps then swung his left foot back but Halldorsson was moving before the Argentine hit the ball, diving into its path and knocking the shot down with both hands.
CROATIA 2, NIGERIA 0: In Kaliningrad, Russia, Luka Modric set up one goal and scored another from the penalty spot. The Real Madrid midfielder sent in a corner that was headed by two Croatians and then deflected into the net by Nigeria midfielder Oghenekaro Etebo in the 32nd minute.
Modric then converted a penalty in the 71st after William Ekong held onto Mario Mandzukic.
DENMARK 1, PERU 0: In Saransk, Russia, Kasper Schmeichel’s slew of saves made Yussuf Poulsen’s opportunistic second-half goal stand up. Appearing at the World Cup for the first time in 36 years, Peru had overwhelming fan support in the Mordovia Arena and the bulk of scoring chances, including a late first-half penalty shot that Christian Cueva sent sailing over the cross bar.
FRANCE 2, AUSTRALIA 1: In Kazan, Russia, technology twice helped France to the win.
The French team was given a penalty kick, eventually converted by Antoine Griezmann in the 58th minute, after the referee watched the replay of a foul on the sideline.
Paul Pogba later scored the winning goal in the 81st minute, and goal-line technology was used to confirm the ball had crossed the line after bouncing down off the crossbar.
Note
BRAZIL: The team plays Switzerland today in its first World Cup match since its humiliating 7-1 loss to Germany in the 2014 semifinals. But Brazil has lost only once in 21 matches since Tite took over as coach in June 2016, and there has been talk of a sixth World Cup title for a team that has outscored its opponents 47-5 over the last two years.
“I don’t think about that. And not everyone (in Brazil) likes me,” Tite, 57, said, chuckling.
His players, however, are firmly on his side.
“I have said it on many occasions — our teacher has changed the face of the national team,” Brazil captain Marcelo said. “He breaks everything down for us and that makes our job easier.”