Iceland’s greatest win easier than expected, says coach

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In qualification and now in France, the unheralded Icelandic players have forged a tight-knit formation that gives away nearly no chances and has proved clinical when it has broken out on counterattacks.

Hallgrimsson is dreaming of adding another chapter to that fairytale and said: “We’ve said previously that this game is a win-win game”.

“He was absolutely fantastic – I’d be really surprised if a big team was not writing his name on a sheet and calling his agent tonight”, Hallgrimsson said. But we can still lose against the big teams obviously. And they should get tickets for the next game as well. That will probably be the case for many of Iceland’s players, the highly impressive Basel midfielder Birkir Bjarnason among them, in truth but the ripple effect may change Icelandic football’s wider picture for good too.

The exit from the European Championship finals left fans of England – population 53 million and with the world’s wealthiest football league – reeling with a similar sense of desperation as the loosing “Remain” camp of Britain’s “Brexit” referendum. “In individual quality you can see that they are superior”.

A video showing the Wales players celebrating went viral an hour or so after England’s 2-1 defeat in Nice, but yesterday defender Chris Gunter insisted it was not meant to be disrespectful. But I don’t care. England coach Roy Hodgson did the same after overseeing yet another humiliating campaign in a major tournament. “I know of our analysis from the game, we know what we did well and we know what we can improve”.

“For football in Iceland this is wonderful”, he said. “If the players play with the same attitude, we can beat anyone”. The 30 year-old scored the all-important goal that got Iceland back into the game and also produced a defensively-sound performance alongside Kari Arnason in the heart of defence. We keep the standard, we’re 100 percent professional.