We all love the underdog…..WE DO…..When the NCAA Basketball Tournament comes around, we hope for that 1-16 and that 2-15 upset. It’s what makes us watch and pull for the little guy and hope that they pull off the unthinkable. Well….The little guy pulled off the unthinkable yesterday around 5:00pm eastern time, which translates to about 11pm in France and 9pm in Iceland. What’s funny is that in Iceland, at this time of year, the sun doesn’t set until around midnight and it rises 3 hours later. So it is safe to say that the people of Iceland might literally party from sun down to sun up, as they celebrate the upset of all upsets by bouncing England out of the EURO 2016 Soccer tournament by a score of 2-1.
My good friend Sam has dubbed this team, “The SON’s of Iceland”. It’s funny, because literally every player on the team with the exception of one, last name ends with “-son”. Hence, the Son’s of Iceland. What makes this so amazing are a couple fun facts. Fact number 1; Iceland has never participated in the World Cup, just not good enough. Fact number 2; they have also never qualified for the Euro tournament as well. They were just happy to have qualified and participate. No one expected them to get out of the group stage. They made it through by beating Austria and tying both Hungary and the Cristiano Ronaldo-led Portugal team. Which brings us to yesterday and their knockout round match with England. We all know that England failed to get out of the group stage at the previous world cup, so they have not been that great on the International stage. But no one expected this.
England came out strong; Raheem Sterling made a play towards the goal that caused Iceland to foul him in the penalty area which led to an early goal by Wayne Rooney. Two minutes later Ragnar Sigurdsson tied the game off of a throw in and headed pass. 10 minutes later, Kolbeinn Sigthorsson scored the game winner in a beautiful display of passing that led to a weak shot that actually got past the English goalkeeper Joe Hart. That’s all that was needed for Iceland as England failed muster quality chances for the rest of the game. Granted, England had their shots, but they just couldn’t penetrate the Iceland defense to score. When the final whistle blew, England had suffered possibly the worst defeat in the history of their national team. This also led to their coach to quit the team. I haven’t checked the British papers, but I am sure they are getting ripped to shreds right now. As for the Son’s of Iceland, they move on to play the host team France on Sunday at 3pm EST. France has a very good team, but they said the same thing about England. I know I will be rooting for Iceland and so should you! Plus, they have an awesome commentator LOL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg4a_gW1KhM
