MOSCOW — Heimir Hallgrimsson wanted to save time. Before Iceland’s coach faced the questions of the gathered news media on the eve of his country’s first game at a World Cup, he tried to help out. “Before anyone asks,” he said, “I’m still a dentist, and I will never stop being a dentist.”
Hallgrimsson and his players are in no doubt as to how they are perceived; they are well aware of the role to which they have been assigned. They are the ultimate underdogs, the smallest nation ever to play in a World Cup — just as, two years ago, they were the smallest nation ever to play at a European Championship — the team that knows a substantial proportion of its fans by name, the team that is managed by a dentist.
Alfred Finnbogason (23')
They understand it, too. They appreciate just how compelling their story is, how remarkable it is that a country so small should now have assumed a place if not in the first rank of soccer nations, then surprisingly close to it. The romance of their rise is so seductive that the players cannot help but acknowledge it and, occasionally, even revel in it.
There comes a point, though, where that romance begins to obscure the achievements of these players, rather than celebrate them, where the appeal of presenting them as nothing but a plucky band of adventurers does not highlight the scale of what they have achieved, but begins to diminish it.
For on Saturday, in its World Cup debut, Iceland held its own in a 1-1 draw with powerful Argentina — Lionel Messi, Sergio Aguero and all the rest of them — not because of its relationship with its fans, or because of the thunderclap, or because of its coach’s day job.
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No, Iceland emerged with a well-deserved point — and a substantially enhanced chance of reaching the knockout rounds of this competition, just as it did at the Euros in 2016 — because of something much more mundane, and much less quirky and compelling: the fact that it is a well-organized, well-drilled side, made up of hard-working, disciplined professionals and sprinkled with just a little invention and stardust. Iceland keeps achieving these things, keeps surprising the world and surpassing its assumed limitations, because it is a good team.
And the romance with Iceland is the consequence of all this, not the cause.
That Iceland, population 330,000, could hold off Argentina, population 43.85 million humans, plus Messi, is not a shock to compare with Cameroon beating Argentina in the 1990 World Cup, or Senegal overcoming France in 2002. It is not even an equivalent to New Zealand’s tie with Italy in 2010.
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Iceland’s soccer pedigree is too great, its quality too high, for it to be included with those startling results. This is a team, after all, that boasts players in the Premier League, the Bundesliga and Serie A; of the 23 players at Hallgrimsson’s disposal in Russia, only one — the right back Birkir Saevarsson — still plays in Iceland. Judging by his performance on Saturday, shutting down no less a threat than Ángel Di María, he will not be there for long.
It is a side that reached the quarterfinals of the European Championship just two years ago, beating England to get that far. At that point, emotionally and physically exhausted, Iceland lost to France, the host, but still managed to score twice in defeat.
And Iceland possesses a group of players as professionally prepared as any other. “There was nothing in Argentina’s game that surprised us,” Hallgrimsson said after the game. Iceland knew it would have to absorb pressure, knew it would have to resist being dazzled by Argentina’s possession, knew it would have to take its chances on the counterattack, which is just what it did when Alfred Finnbogason tapped home a first-half goal to cancel out Aguero’s opening salvo. Iceland, it remains clear, is a team that knows who it is and what it can do.
