How they reached the quarter finals?

The beginning of the brightest era of the Icelandic football was set in 2012, when the team made a terrific performance in the qualifications for the World Cup 2014 in Brazil. Iceland finished in second position of their preliminary group and took part in the playoffs against Croatia, but lost 0-2 on aggregate. However, The Vikings recorded some amazing results, including a 4-4 draw against Switzerland away from home. They were losing 4-1, but managed to equalize in the end of the game.

To continue with, Iceland were in a very tough qualifying group for the Euro 2016, alongside with the teams of Turkey, Czech Republic, Holland, Kazakhstan and Latvia. They achieved 6 victories and 2 draws of their 10 matches (including 2 wins against Holland, and victories against Czech Rep. and Turkey) and qualified for a major international tournament for the first time in their history. Eidur Gudjohnsen, who retired from international football in 2013, decided to return to the team in 2015, which boosted further the confidence of the team.

The success of the national team is particularly because of the “football houses”, which have been built in the country. Because of the harsh weather is almost impossible the players to practice outdoors and this led to the idea of the indoors stadiums. The first “football house” has been built in 2000 in Keflavik. Nowadays, there are 11 “football houses” in Iceland, but 4 of them are still under construction.

There are lots of interesting individuals in the squad, such as the goalkeeper Hannes Halldorsson, who is one of the best directors of advertisement in his country. He is currently playing for the Norwegian side Bodo / Glimt, but he proved he is a world class goalkeeper! The coach of the team – Heimir Hallgrimsson is the most popular dentist in Iceland. But, he proved he has also a great understanding of football!

About 10 % of the population of Iceland (which is near 330 k. people) are in France at the moment and hope the team can repeat Greece’s performance from 2004. But, the thing I can say for Iceland is that the team looks even stronger than Greek team from 2004.

The most impressive in Iceland performance is that the team creates goal-scoring chances from nothing! Every throw-in, which is near to the opposite goal is even more dangerous than a corner kick. Sigthorsson has won the biggest number of aerial duels at the Euro 2016!

Iceland have played 26 competitive games since 2012. They have won 13 of them and have only lost on 6 occasions. The team has kept a clean sheet 9 times in these games, showing a really good performance in defence. But, the most important thing is that Iceland can take advantage of their goal-scoring chances. They are good when playing on counter attacks and know how to use the set-pieces. Gylfi Sigurdsson is one of the leaders in the team. He is technically gifted and easily converts the free-kicks into goals!

The way Iceland score goals:

Long throw-ins (5) – 2012 – 1 vs. Norway, 1 vs. Albania; 2014 – 1 vs. Czech Rep.; 2016 – 1 vs. Austria, 1 vs. England;

Free kicks (5) – 2012 – 1 vs. Albania, 1 vs. Slovenia; 2014 – 1 vs. Latvia; 2015 – 1 vs. Kazakhstan, 1 vs. Latvia;

Penalties (4) – 2013 – 1 vs. Slovenia; 2014 – 1 vs. Holland; 2015 – 1 vs. Holland; 2016 – 1 vs. Hungary;

Corners (3) – 2014 – 1 vs. Turkey, 1 vs. Holland; 2015 – 1 vs. Czech Rep.

Open play (23) – 2012 – 1 vs. Norway; 2013 – 2 vs. Slovenia (in 2 matches), 4 vs. Switzerland (in one match), 2 vs. Albania (in one match), 2 vs. Cyprus (in one match); 1 vs. Norway; 2014 – 2 vs. Turkey, 2 vs. Latvia; 2015 – 2 vs. Kazakhstan, 1 vs. Czech Rep., 1 vs. Latvia; 2016 – 1 vs. Portugal, 1 vs. Austria, 1 vs. England;