The Icelandic sagas, a treasure trove of oral history narratives from the ninth and 10th centuries, are highly underrated for their entertainment value. Ask any scholar of old Norse or medieval literature. In Njal’s Saga, the greatest of the narratives, there is a lot of blood, hatred and death. A lot. It’s like a Quentin Tarantino blood-spatter-fest on acid.
It is, however, a cautionary tale. No matter how hard people try to be reasonable, somebody will take offence and seek revenge, and there will be severed limbs at the end. As an insight into Iceland and its people, the saga is useful. Icelanders are stoic but expect bad things to happen. They just know that something dire is around the corner.
And so it is with Iceland at Euro 2016. The island country, population 332,000, is the smallest country ever to qualify for the Euros, but is utterly undaunted so far, holding Portugal and Hungary to 1-1 draws in Group F through tough displays of defensive action. The team meets Austria on Wednesday. Group F is wide open, and Iceland may well make it through to the knockout round. It’s even possible Iceland could top the group, depending on the results in other matches.
If the team does lope into the next round, a population bigger than Iceland’s will rejoice. It is everybody’s favourite underdog. Nobody’s ever heard of the players, and neutrals are astonished that Iceland is there in the first place.
This is a nice position to be in, but fraught. While Iceland is everybody’s nice underdog team, Wales has become everybody’s boyfriend. The swagger and poise of Wales is seductive, and the assuredness of a 3-0 victory over Russia made many observers swoon.
The islanders deserve the love, though. The facts behind Iceland’s rise to this level are incredible.
In the dying minutes of the match against Hungary, Eidur Gudjohnsen came on as a substitute. The 37-year-old, who played for Bolton, Chelsea and Barcelona, had retired from the national team ages ago, but returned for the Euro, answering an SOS call from the team. Amazingly, when Gudjohnsen made his debut for Iceland in 1996, he also came on as a substitute, and the player he replaced on the field was his father, Arnor. Yep, at one time, the soccer community in Iceland was so small it was a family thing.
There are two coaches, who manage jointly. Lars Lagerback, 67, is a Swedish for-hire guy, having previously managed Sweden and Nigeria. His sidekick, Heimir Hallgrimsson, 49, is also for hire, but as a dentist. That’s his real job in Iceland. Iceland’s No. 1 goalkeeper, Hannes Halldorsson, joined the national team in 2011 when he was 27. Before that he had a busy career as a filmmaker, a job he has kept up. He directed the video for Iceland’s 2012 entry in the Eurovision Song Contest.
But here’s some advice for Iceland and its admirers: Get ready for that inevitable heartbreak. In a way, Iceland knows this already, by temperament and by recent direct experience – a first victory was snatched away by Birkir Saevarsson’s late own-goal against Hungary.
The model for dealing with heartbreak like this is Ireland. While the Republic of Ireland is more than 10 times the size of Iceland in population, it remains a fringe player, happy just to qualify.
Ireland’s soccer saga is anchored in the 1990 World Cup in Italy. On the strength of three tied games in the first round and a penalty-kick win the second stage, Ireland made it to the quarter-finals of that World Cup. It was a glorious summer in Ireland, the country in a frenzy about soccer. Just as Iceland is using this Euro to rise in spirit from the ashes of a collapsed economy, in 1990, Ireland celebrated the end of a decade of political stagnation and mass unemployment.
Since then, it hasn’t been quite the same. Other tournaments have been reached, but nothing like the same weird success. These days, the Republic of Ireland goes to tournaments hoping to win the award for having the best supporters. They won it at Euro 2012. The team lost all three games and had the tournament’s worst record, but UEFA president Michel Platini – as he was then – went to Dublin to present a special award to Irish fans to recognize their great behaviour and contribution to the Euro matches.
Ireland is hoping to win it again this time. The Irish media wisely devotes more attention to the fans, not the team. Irish newspapers and websites are full of stories about the “Green Army” making friends in France, singing songs, dancing with supporters of opposing teams and, in one fabulous incident, serenading a tiny French baby on a tram in Bordeaux. It’s the goodwill that matters, not the team or the games.
So it will be for Iceland, eventually. Everyone wishes them well, of course. But heartbreak is coming. It is foretold
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