While each of the 32 nations qualified might kid themselves they have a chance at the World Cup, realistically & statistically, barely one quarter of them actually do. / Radio Sport
From the reaction of the respective players, coaches and supporters at the end of Saturday's World Cup match at Spartak Stadium, you surely would've concluded that little Iceland had toppled Lionel Messi and the giants from Argentina, executed an upset for the ages and rocked the football orbit.
Indeed, as Argentine chins dipped, the Icelanders, some crazy percentage of the 337,000 population that had journeyed to Russia, celebrated with the vigor and joy that a 1-1 result does not convey.
Forgive them, for what had just unfolded will take a special place in the country's history, and not just in the sporting realm: a point in their World Cup debut, against South American masters and the most gifted player of them all.
Not all draws are equal, and for Iceland, which executed its tactics to perfection and quickly answered an early deficit, the single point could not quantify what it meant.
"People are saying, 'Why do you celebrate a point like you won the game?'" coach Heimir Hallgrimsson said.
"But just wait and see when we win a game. That's going to be a celebration."
Iceland's Birkir Saevarsson and his teammates applaud after the 1-1 draw. Photo / AP
For now, the Icelanders will savour what they richly deserved. And with the group favorite out of the way, they can turn their attention to beating Nigeria or Croatia for a chance to reach the round of 16.
There are greater heavy-duty conflicts during these two weeks of group scrums: Spain-Portugal, Germany-Mexico and Belgium-England. But none offered contrasts as delicious as here in northwest Moscow: big v small, elitists v outsiders, high style v blue-collar structure.
On the sideline, Hallgrimsson, a part-time dentist, was a profile in cool, arms crossed, in short pants and warm-up jacket emblazoned "Island," as the country name is spelled in the native language.
His counterpart, Jorge Sampaoli, looked like he was about to pounce onto the pitch like a cheetah freed from captivity. With each empty possession, he paced and growled, his arms in a constant state of tension.
It was a frustrating afternoon for the Argentines, who labored to solve Iceland's 11-player defensive puzzle in front of 44,190 singing spectators.
Sergio Aguero had put them ahead in the 19th minute, turning and firing from 14 yards to find the upper left side of the net. For the most part, though, Iceland constricted space, moved in synchronicity, boxed in Messi and rarely allowed Argentina to accelerate the pace.
After Alfred Finnbogason converted a rebound from close range in the 23rd minute, Iceland resumed its stout ways.
"There's a certain amount of frustration right now," Sampaoli said.
"We came very much motivated and we really came to win against a team that had a very strong defensive structure. We tried to work better in the second half to generate more opportunities, but what can you do?"
Well, Messi could've converted a penalty kick in the 64th minute. Instead, he left his attempt within reach of goalkeeper Hannes Halldorsson for a momentum-killing save.
Argentina's Lionel Messi looks down at the end of the group D match between Argentina and Iceland. Photo / AP.
"In the first game of the World Cup, face the best player in the world in a penalty is, yeah, a big moment," Halldorsson said.
"It's a dream come true to save it, especially because it helped us get a big point that I hope is going to prove important for us."
Consider the players involved: Messi will enter soccer annals as one of the all-time greats (even if he never wins a world title), while Halldorsson is a 34-year-old aspiring filmmaker with an middling club re'sume'. (He currently plays for Randers in Denmark.)
Messi, for all of his greatness, is not a sure thing on penalty kicks. And Halldorsson was prepared.
"I did some homework. I knew this was a situation that could come up," he said. "It's a long shot, but it happened. I looked at a lot of penalties from Messi and I also looked how I had been behaving in the last couple of penalties, so I tried to get into their minds and imagine what they would be thinking about me. I had a good feeling he would go this way today."
The penalty bid was consistent with Messi's off-day. Iceland's fortitude allowed him only fleeting moments of freedom. With his teammates unable to get him the ball, Messi often dropped deep into the formation to take possession and launch attacks. In front him, 11 Icelanders stood in his way.
Said Hallgrimsson: "We never gave them a runway to get anywhere."
On the defensive tactics, he added: "If we go one-on-one everywhere around the pitch, you don't need to ask who is going to win that game. 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. For everyone, it is more enjoyable to play this way and achieve something than play in a different way and don't achieve anything."
In the final 10 minutes, Messi stroked a shot wide left and, with a pocket of space, drove a 20-yard bid off a teammate in the penalty area.
And on the final touch of the match, presented with an opportunity for heroism, just as rival Cristiano Ronaldo had fulfilled for Portugal a day earlier, Messi smashed a 28-yard free kick into the wall.
The end result — and the celebrations that followed — once again showed how easy it is to cheer for Iceland ...
In Reykjavik, Iceland, the 35-year-old hotel manager in her Viking helmet with the upturned horns and the Iceland flag painted intricately across her forehead has a best friend whose sister's boyfriend is best friends with a defender on the Iceland national soccer team.
The 35-year-old fan and aluminum smelter wearing an Iceland flag as a cape and walking the rowdy side of the stadium during a recent friendly against Norway played soccer with one of the midfielders from ages 10 to 14, then went to school with him from ages 16 to 20.
Iceland Manager Heimir Hallgrimsson is a practicing dentist who is known to visit fans at a pub hours before home matches. Photo / The Washington Post by Ernir Eyjolfsson
The 35-year-old fan outside the stadium before the friendly doesn't really know any players, but wait, he knows the team's manager, Heimir Hallgrimsson, having served as the physiotherapist for the club that Hallgrimsson managed on Vestmannaeyjar island, and also because his wife is a dentist who happened to practice alongside Hallgrimsson, who is also, yes, a dentist.
A 32-year-old woman steeped in Iceland gear near the vendor was in the eighth grade when the goalkeeper was in the 10th, when the goalkeeper ran for student council.
She voted for him.
Birkir Bjarnason (No. 8) is a defender for Iceland, but Bergthor Thorvaldsson, who owns a store that sells national-team apparel, calls him cousin. Photo / The Washington Post by Ernir Eyjólfsson
The 21st World Cup has brought together its usual masters such as Brazil (population: 207 million) and Germany (80 million) and its frequenters such as Nigeria (190 million) and Japan (126 million).
In the case of tournament debutant Iceland (340,000), it's as if Bakersfield, California, made the World Cup, or, as the 24-year-old Iceland-apparel-store owner Bergthor Thorvaldsson said, like "a town in Texas".
Yet as stunning as was the passage of this wee, noiseless island where hardly anybody ever even honks a horn, as remarkable as it was that Iceland won its qualification group outright in the most dreaded of the earthly footballing continents, and as deserving as it is among the pantheon of sports feats in this desperate, underdog-eat-underdog world, it manages to become more staggering with familiarity. It manages to lap at the shores of absurd.
They've all accessed the World Cup from a handsome little stadium, Laugardalsvollur, with one scoreboard clock and open ends and four stalwart light stanchions either reminiscent of a Texas high school football joint (or smaller).
When a ball sails over a goal and crosses the running track - yeah, the running track - someone runs to retrieve it, reminiscent of teenagers chasing down extra points on an American Friday night. They've reached the World Cup from a country where people speak of standing next to the prime minister in line - at a shoe repair shop.
Still more than all that, it's how many times one hears someone say that everyone seems to know someone with the team, or knows someone who knows someone, until you start thinking that everyone knowing someone or knowing somebody who knows someone might be some kind of national motto.
It's the mad, mad reality conveyed by the 27-year-old defender Holmar Orn Eyjolfsson. While the likes of Brazil and Germany will play before their droves of fervent strangers, Eyjolfsson said that if he happens to glimpse into the stands while playing ...
"You know where your people are sitting, obviously, but yeah, definitely, you can look into the stands and know somebody."
So the sports-bar manager has known Iceland's recently retired best-ever player for years, and the walking-tour guide kind of knows probably 22 of the 23 Iceland players through a friend, and the 24-year-old apparel shop owner has a former classmate whose brother knows well two Iceland players who just stopped in the shop, and ...
All the closeness makes a fine slew of uncommon effects.
Iceland soccer fans break out their 'Viking Clap' cheer on the way to watch a friendly against Norway earlier this month. Photo / The Washington Post by : Ernir Eyjólfsson
Get this: Hallgrimsson, the manager, shows up at a pub three hours before national home matches.
He meets fans.
"He tells us the lineup," said Sunna Gudrun Petursdottir, the woman in the Viking helmet.
"He tells us (the planned) tactics. And there's total silence. No phones. And nobody has ever posted anything about anything that goes on ... It's a beautiful thing and nobody would ever do anything to ruin that, however drunk you are. You would never compromise it."
"Nobody Snapchats," said Petur Stephenssen, the fan with the flag cape.
Get also this: Before the friendly with Norway, Hallgrimsson brought along a temporary guest, Lars Lagerback, because the two of them used to co-manage Iceland, including during their mind-altering run to the quarterfinals of the 2016 European Championships, which included that deathless 2-1 dismissal of England and the popularisation of the "Viking Clap".
Lagerback greeted the pub-going fans, of whom he said, "They were very nice and I was honest and very nice back to them." He presented Tolfan, the ardent Iceland fan group, with a good-luck Norway shirt.
Lagerback manages Norway.
"The closeness is obviously a thing," Hallgrimsson said. "We know each other personally more than other (countries') players or fans. So" - wait for it - "everybody knows someone, or knows someone who knows someone."
That results in "an ownership of the team," he said. "They get more information than most fans. I think they have more ownership in what we are doing than some fans."
In turn, a smallness exploited thoughtfully might even become a boon on the pitch. It helps with chemistry, of which goalkeeper Hannes Por Halldorsson said, "It's not something you can order," as from a menu. It helps with resolve, of which Eyjolfsson said: "I think (the smallness) gives you an extra boost. You feel a little bit more emotionally involved, I would think. So, you know, you have a real sense of fighting for not only you, not only for your team, but for everyone in the country."
It might relate to arithmetic, of which Agust Danielsson, the physiotherapist with the dentist wife, said, "I think it's more or less just because we're not that many, so every goal that we achieve, it's a greater goal than when you have, like, people of a million-whatever."
Then there's a factor almost incomprehensible to the human mind.
Apparently, Iceland fans don't complain about their team.
An Italian man residing in Iceland might marvel at this, because to complain about Italy's team is a function of Italian nationality mandatory for passport renewal. An Icelandic man living in England might marvel that England fans already have begun complaining about their team for a World Cup that has not begun, just to get the jump on the matter.
The lack of Icelandic lament and derision probably owes to the odd fact that the players aren't really strangers. They're fellow humans.
"We are never too harsh on them," said Kolbrun Gigja, the sports-bar manager. "Here, we feel what they're feeling. We feel with them. When they're playing, it's like we're playing."
"If someone tweets something about a player, someone's going to know that player and stand up for them," said Solrun Flobenz, a young woman at a tourist counter who also spoke also of a Facebook rarity: finding other Icelanders with no mutual friends.
"It is a different vibe," said Tomas Shelton, the walking-tour guide. "Because I'm a huge football fan, so with my team in the English Premier League, and with the U.S. national team, which I follow of course as well" - he has one American parent - "it is way different than the Iceland team. Because it's like as you say, you know them a little bit better. And it's like, if they make a mistake, you feel sorry for him, not for yourself."
Further, players aren't idolised, because Icelanders aren't showy and don't idolise others, especially those amid the everyday tapestry.
"There's not this gap between people," said Kjartan Mar Hallkesson, a stadium vendor selling T-shirts and scarves and whatnot. "And that's the same in society itself. You don't have this lower-class, middle-class, upper-class people. Here we are one nation."
The stadium vendor selling T-shirts and scarves and whatnot doesn't think he has much in the way of connections to the team. Oh, wait, no. Two years ago, the former captain, Herman Hreidarsson, turned up after a match to buy some gear for some friends, missed the team bus and got a ride from Hallkesson and his family. But that's about it. Oh, wait, no. The vendor coaches 4- and 5-year-old boys, including the son of one of the players, who comes to practices without fanfare. The vendor briefly forgot about that.
Oh, no, wait. The vendor's oldest son and the middle son of Eidur Gudjohnsen, the retired legend, play on a team, so one time last year up in Akureyri on the north coast, Iceland's fourth-largest city at 18,000-ish, Gudjohnsen and the boys kicked a soccer ball around a sauna.
Citizens of other countries might retell that story in droning perpetuity.
Halkesson almost forgot.
Two hours of driving and 35 minutes of ferrying from Reykjavik, the Vestmannaeyjar islands have some of the most breathtakingly audacious topography upon this orb - and maybe 4,300 people. Sheep and lambs dwell on sloping hillsides that might cause some of us to topple into the North Atlantic after a pint. Puffins, the adorable ornithological stars of Iceland, lure tourists. Views of the eruptions of Eyjafjallajokull, the volcano that disrupted the North Atlantic flight paths famously in 2010, were jaw-dropping until, day-to-day, the residue became a pain in the ash.
Iceland's Birkir Saevarsson, left, and Ragnar Sigurdsson celebrate at the end of the group D match between Argentina and Iceland. Photo / AP
Hop in a taxi, ask the driver about the Iceland manager hailing from Vestmannaeyjar, and hear the driver say, of course, "He's my dentist."
Hallgrimsson, 51 with great teeth himself, hasn't been examining human mouths lately, being rather busy in Reykjavik. He has been managing a team atop a program built logically on organisation, defence and counterattacking, yet a team rising unimaginably for Icelanders. He also turned up lately in Reykjavik to vote in Vestmannaeyjar's local elections, and to ask the taxi driver and his brother for advice in how to transport his ballot to Vestmannaeyjar.
His Vestmannaeyjar house is plenty of house but with zero ostentation. The residence is upstairs, the dentist's office downstairs. The very sight of it might come as a reminder that this whole thing is just about beyond belief. These Icelanders await witnessing a World Cup either in person in Russia or in downtown gatherings with midnight light at these mid-60s north parallels. They do so as a global darling of bigger lands that didn't qualify, adopted by an Italian newspaper or an American poll.
Yet you can't leave the Iceland-apparel store without the impressive owner, Thorvaldsson, pointing to a photo of Iceland player Birkir Bjarnason and saying, "That's my cousin."
And you can't even depart the airport at 7.30am without meeting the engaging Gudmundur Olafsson, having coffee at the next table. He says he used to coach boys in an under-14 league, against two of Iceland's players. Oh, and also, his sister lives on Vestmannaeyjar, so of course she knows Hallgrimsson, who has told her that her son should keep playing and learning football, for Hallgrimsson thinks he has a lot of promise.
