#4 ICELAND v England
Euro 2016 was Iceland’s first appearance at a major football tournament in their history. They had already beaten all odds to reach the knockout stages – after they had beaten the more-fancied Austria in the group stage.
The stage was set at Nice, as they took on England, who were rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of an easy entry into the quarterfinal. But what followed just summed up the England national team.
Wayne Rooney had given them the lead in the third minute with a penalty, but Iceland were not going to lie down and let their heads drop. They took the game to England and midway through the first half, they were ahead.
Ragnar Sigurdsson equalised after England failed to deal with a long throw from Aron Gunnarsson. Iceland weren’t done as Kolbeinn Sigthorsson’s rather weak shot eluded the grasp of Joe Hart.
After that, Iceland played as a unit as England barely had a sniff. The Vikings defended as a team and when they went forward, they went forward in bunches. It was a perfectly executed plan, and coach Lars Lagerback would have been well pleased with what transpired.
There will always be arguments that England being as woeful as they were helped Iceland, but in many ways, England were bad because they were made to look bad by a terrific Iceland performance.
England had “the easy path”, but England didn’t go through, because Iceland were not the easy path.
