Iceland vs England: Soccer players win hearts at Euro 2016
A a sea of blue engulfed the Stade Geoffroy-Guichard. When Icelandic groups descended on St. Etienne in eastern France to watch their heroes play Portugal, it was one of the largest gatherings of Icelanders outside the island: more than 30,000, a tenth of the population, had bought tickets for Euro 2016. Families with prams, teenagers and middle-aged men with plastic Viking helmets walked the streets and chanted in unison: “Avram Ísland!” (Avram Iceland!)
There were no cotton balls, but still eight police officers from the Icelandic police, world famous for posing with ice cream and kittens on them. official Instagram, had been flown in. Unarmed, they huddled alongside French riot squads, specially trained for bombs and chemical warfare. But the match on June 14th went off without a hitch, with Iceland’s fans offering a counterpoint to fan violence elsewhere in the tournament.
Iceland’s presence at the championship came against all odds. A volcanic island covered in glaciers all year round, the nation has the shortest football season in the world: even the designer pitch of the national stadium, hand-picked to withstand arctic winds and snow, sometimes froze to death. Four years ago, Iceland, whose beer is named after a disastrous 2-14 loss to Denmark in 1967, had been ranked no. 131 worldwide by FIFA.
But on Monday, Iceland could go down in football history as the smallest country to reach the quarter-finals of the European Championship. After beating the Dutch team to qualify for France, the team started the Euro 2016 tournament with 1-1 lossThe Portuguese, which made captain Cristiano Ronaldo’s reaction all the sweeter as he dismissed it as a “lucky night”. In Marseille on June 18, the day after Iceland celebrated its independence from Denmark, the team secured yet another draw, 1-1, this time against Hungary. Then, on June 22 last Our boys (“our boys”) beat Austria 2-1 in a victory at the last moment to secure a game in Nice against England on June 27.
“We are the underdogs, so everyone is here to support us,” said a supporter named Katrín, who wore a faded flag – blue for the sea, white for snow and red for lava – on each cheek. – Will we win? she asked verbatim. “No… And I don’t care.”
Iceland’s aggressive invasion of France is a welcome distraction from matters at home; earlier this year, protesters in Alþingi Reykjavík threw bananas and called Iceland a “banana republic” after the Panama Papers exposed Prime Minister Sigmund Gunnlaugsson’s tax fraud and ousted him from office. Many citizens had yet to forget and forgive the financial crisis of 2008, when all three of the country’s major banks defaulted as one of the biggest bank failures in modern history hit the island.
The country’s progress at Euro 2016 has allowed the country to rediscover a bit of lost Nationalism (“nationalism”). As one football fan put it, “inferiority just got a little easier to live with.”
In France, Icelandic Viking fighters have received a warm reception — not just because soccer fans love underdogs, but because they possess something extremely rare in modern Europe: a passionate patriotism that has not been carried over to extremes. Haukur Jóhannsson, project manager at the Red Cross, says Iceland’s “positive nationalism” is rooted in isolation and a constant struggle with the elements. “We are just proud to be from Iceland – because Iceland is very difficult to live in.
It is also a very difficult place to play football. In the 2000s, a provocative government initiative rolled out geothermally heated stadiums for year-round practice nationwide. UEFA’s expensive licenses were almost subsidized; with 700 certified trainers, Iceland had the highest number of trainers in the world. Coach, Lars Lagerbäck, was recruited from Sweden (and later elected “Icelander of the Year”). Today, 10% of the country’s population plays soccer regularly, and the national team was selected from among 100 full-time professionals playing throughout Europe.
Where most European teams reflected an increasingly multicultural demographic, Iceland emerged from a gene pool so homogenous that it became ground zero for mapping the human genome – and even had app promised to prevent ‘accidental morality spells.’
And yet the ugly side of nationalism is still hard to find in Iceland; last year over 11,000 Icelanders offered to take Syrian refugees into their homes in response to the government’s promise of only 50 individuals. With fewer than 1,000 Muslim residents, Iceland still sees occasional hate crimes but is the only Nordic country without an Islamophobic party.
In France, however, there are signs of tension everywhere – from the mayor of St. Etienne promised to accept only Christian refugeesto the conflict in Marseille following a burqa ban. “You see what is happening in this county: they have done everything wrong. Johansson said. “But who is going to listen to little old Iceland? [National Front leader] Marine Le Pen is not going to listen.”
Iceland’s geographical and institutional isolation means that it has been cut off from the current economic upheaval on the European continent. The country withdrew its application to join the EU last year, and after Britain’s exit vote, the idea was that Iceland would turn towards the continent. seemed more distant than ever before.
And Iceland’s loud and good-natured presence in France could be an inspiration to other fans struggling with nationalist politics. Tonight, as the sea of blue sailed over Nice with Europe at a crossroads, Iceland coach Lagerbäck said England faced another, far less dangerous Brexit.
“If you combine this good feeling and this togetherness and give it to politics, it can change something,” said Andreas Brenner, an occupational therapist from Austria, as he celebrated with Icelandic fans after his country’s loss. “So Europe sticks together, again.” If we divide now… I am very afraid of next year.”
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