Annons
Annons
Even so, I remember being struck by the general weirdness of seeing them up there, those familiar-looking Icelandic faces with their mispronounced Icelandic names. It was like seeing your best friend in a movie, very surreal and incongruous.We knew the odds were good that we'd get out of our group and into the last 16. Only six teams would be disqualified after the first round, and we'd be damned if we were going to be one of those six. Even so, it very much came down to the wire, as our entire group seemed incapable of decisively winning anything, and we squeaked into the second round with a narrow victory against Austria.I'm not saying that Iceland were particularly good, but you didn't have to be very good to beat England. You just had to be slightly less shit.
Annons
But boy, was it simultaneously satisfying and infuriating when Iceland did win. English pundits exploded with vitriol over how embarrassing it all was, blaming the defeat on anything and everything without admitting to even the idea that Iceland had simply played a better game than England. I'm not saying that Iceland were particularly good, but you didn't have to be very good to beat England. You just had to be slightly less shit.And nothing underscored this better than France kicking our ass in the quarter-finals. France had until then been fairly unconvincing this year, with the closest thing to a real test in the tournament being a 0-0 draw against Switzerland, but they really shone against Iceland. Their star players finally delivered, and while Iceland fought valiantly until the end, making France earn their victory, the end result was never really in doubt.
Annons