₦airaland Forum

AIG07:
Rohr needs to speak to Moses he needs to stop falling like a child learning how to work.

eterisan:
I like this fan..... Glad the players are getting the message.

Oasis007:


Easy Bro, how did you come to this Conclusion - that the Iceland Team lacks creativity? So sigurdsson and other Midfielders in the Team ain't creative?! Any Fact to prove it??





Chief Coach...... another Fallacy. Has Iwobi ever played as SS for the Eagles, specifically behind Iheanacho as the leading Striker?! Who dash Iwobi speed Sir?! Even Iheanacho ain't a real pacy Player. Understanding you say? On or off the Pitch?!





Master Tactician.......... which one be auxiliary Center Back ni tori Olohun. Mikel as an auxiliary CB?! Kada Kada Sir.





Senior Manager........ and you will be comfortable with two slow CBs in a 3 at the back Formation?! Even ready to experiment a Player as slow as Ogu in a must win Match?!





Lord..... how do you plan to win with this Setup and Lineup?! Ogu at the back?! Etebo as a No. 10?! Iwobi as a SS and Iheanacho as the lead Striker?! LMAO.

Bruh, we will be tactically disgraced, nullified, and brutally massacred by Icelanders.

Cc Mujtahida, Joebie, Chriskel, Elyte89, AIG07, forgiveness........ here comes the Coach to replace Rohr after the Mundial.

aodis:
See ehn, for one with ogu's comment \reply I feel its very very disgusting. Its shows that they really do not care. Yes that's the way I see it. Just like I was listening to sport zone today, if these players loose its business as usual . Honestly I just pray we scale through . if not these sets of eagles are nothing to write hone about. Honestly!

Mujtahida:
We were busy here fighting the negativity of our own resident pessimists but we failed to detect the more serious negativity of Rohr. Excuses are the favorite sport of losers and weaklings.

We are average. FACT. but does that mean we should get run over? No. And other less fancied teams have proven to us that a WC team should fight. It's the WC for God sakes. Serve up something!!

You said self believe is paramount. Bro, you just re-echoed the first of the seven hermetic principles which is mentality. Once the mental frame work is wrong, it's just a matter of time before everything collapses. If it is right, it's just a matter of time for everything to pull through.
I repeat:Rohr has poisoned the mind of the team.

Oasis007:


........ but England has Kane, Alli, Raheem, Lingard even Young in the same Lineup?! This Afternoon, Belgium had Lukaku, Hazard, Carrasco, and Kevin and they won convincingly.

Do you know what's common between them......?! 3 at the Backs!

Cc Safarigirl.

Mujtahida:
I don't know what to highlight in your piece cos it's full of meat.

Same players coasted through the WCQ. Even with such a difficult group we never heard him say that we are the underdogs. Instead he made us feel capable.

Right after the groupings for the WC came out Rohr began to sing two songs:we are underdogs and we are the youngest team.

There's no interview Rohr gave from that time till the eve of the WC where he didn't sing those two songs.

Now let me analyse what I think was playing out right before our eyes (some of us noticed it. My brother realpoacher did. I did too but optimism made me step down a bit): against our African peers Rohr evidently reasoned like this: these guys are all at the same level jare. My players can match them notwithstanding that cameroun are the defending champion and Algeria number one in Africa. He made our players believe they could do it.

Against the teams in our WC group Rohr basically projected his own thinking of how weak we are into the mind of the players by telling them that they are the underdogs. Even the youngest team talk was meant to portray us as weak.

Same players played robust football with 4-3-3 during the WCQ. Same players played like wussies during the WC proper.

Rohr has poisoned the mind of the team. The team played with no believe because the coach had told them too often a time that they were underdogs.

Can they grind through the granite rock of the Icemen?

I am now like the man who brought his demon possessed child to Jesus. Jesus asked him 'do you believe I can do this'? The man replied 'I believe; Lord help my unbelieve.

Super Eagles, I believe, help my unbelieve oo. Help abeg.

Sainty92:
Since Nigeria lost to Croatia, i have lost interest in watching any other game at the world cup. Although i watched all the early games before Nigeria's game. Now i have lost the vibe to watch any other until probably our next match. Nigeria should not end my worldcup this early o. Who else is in my shoes?

SerVik:
There be ice dragons here. By aron gunnarsson.


I hope our World Cup opponents aren’t reading this, because I’m gonna tell you exactly what has made our tiny country so successful.

But first, I need to explain a little bit about Iceland. Because I’ve noticed that now, whenever I meet people, they’ll say, “Oh, you’re from Iceland? That’s so cool. Northern Lights! Yeah, man!”

After the Euros put our country in the spotlight, it seemed like everybody started going to Reykjavik on vacation.

But I’m not from the vacation part of Iceland.

I’m from the north of Iceland.

If you try to find my town on old maps, it just says: There Be Ice Dragons Here.

My hometown is a place called Akureyri, with about 18,000 people. There wasn’t really much else to do there except play sports, so I began playing football. Of course, I dreamed of becoming a pro. But there were two problems.

First, I could only play in the summer. You see, in the winter, the pitches were covered with … come on, everybody say it together! You guessed it: ice and snow. And I’m not talking about the kind of winters you have in England, where a few centimeters of snow cause panic. I’m talking about proper winters. Several meters of snow. Minus 10 °. Four or five hours of sunlight a day.

Have you seen Game of Thrones? Well, then you get the idea.

So in winter, I played handball instead. But that didn’t solve my second football problem. You see, when the snow finally melted, I didn’t play on grass. That kind of luxury was reserved only for the senior players.

So I had to play on gravel.

Seriously.

Safe to say, it wasn’t ideal. One day I came home with this horrific gash on my leg, and my mother was shocked. Of course, all I had done was to go into a sliding tackle, but you’d think I had been fighting a bear!

The team I started playing for was called Thór, named after the god of thunder. (I’m not making this up — you can ask my mother.) And I wanted to be a footballer so badly. I was doing these sprints, I was hitting the gym … basically, I was working like a madman. But I also knew the odds were stacked against me. I kept asking myself questions, and I didn’t like the answers.

Aron, how many professional footballers have come from Akureyri?

Not many.

And how good can you possibly get by playing only in summer on a gravel pitch?

Probably not very good.

But I chose to ignore the facts. And then came the game-changer. You see, years ago, the Icelandic Football Association invested heavily in these indoor halls with artificial grass. Suddenly every kid in Iceland could play football all year.

Do you realize how big a deal that was for us? All year!

Of course, I immediately moved into my local hall. I made it my living room. They often had to kick me out at night. But there was still this mental block. What I mean by that is, nobody really believed you could win anything as a footballer from Iceland. In fact, this one time, a player on our national team told me a story about how he told his club coach that he dreamed of playing in the Euros.

“That’s a nice thought,” the coach said. “It’s just a shame you’re from Iceland.”

Pretty depressing, right?

Personally I didn’t let that bother me, but I did know I had to leave Iceland to evolve as a player. So when I got the chance to join AZ Alkmaar, in Holland, I took it. I was 17 years old. And man, it was tough. The football was on another level. In my first training session, I got nutmegged four times. I was so embarrassed that I considered jumping on the first flight back to Iceland.

https://cdn.theplayerstribune.com/uploads/d07bf7f8-180504sr_arongunnarsson_p1453_0135.jpg?width=1000

But the hardest part was leaving my family. I spent the first two months holed up in a hotel, calling my mother, crying, saying I didn’t really want to do this. Thankfully, my family encouraged me to keep going, and deep down I was still hell-bent on making it.

I guess all my tears paid off, because 18 months later I got the call for the Iceland senior squad. They were playing a friendly against Belarus in Malta, and I had to get on a flight immediately in order to make it in time. Only I didn’t have a car. During my first year in Holland, I had been riding a bicycle everywhere because I couldn’t afford anything else.

So you know what my mother did? She bought me a scooter.

A red scooter. It looked more like a motorcycle really, which I thought was kind of badass. I actually grew quite attached to it. So when they called me up to the national team, I strapped on my backpack, put on my bike helmet and drove to the train station, where I got the express train to the airport.

Thanks for that one, mum �

So I go off and live my dream, playing for Iceland, and it’s incredible. I fly back to Holland, and I’m still in the clouds. I’m buzzing. I’m a big time footballer now, right? Well, I walk outside the train station to fetch my scooter from the rack where I had parked it … and what do I see?

In the very spot where my scooter was supposed to be, there’s nothing but a single tire with a chain wrapped around it.

Someone had stolen my damn scooter while I was off playing Belarus.

My mother just laughed about it, but I’m telling you, I was genuinely upset! That robbery really brought me down to earth quickly.

A few years later, I was part of the group that qualified for the 2011 under-21 Euros in Denmark. That was a big deal, because Iceland had never done that. By the time we entered qualifying for the 2014 World Cup, many of us guys from the under-21 team had become part of the senior side.

Of course, even with all that young talent, we were never supposed to make the World Cup.

People always used to say, “Iceland? Bah, there’s not many world-class players in Iceland.”

But, actually, with 330,000 people living there … we don’t have many players full-stop.

So we had to be clever about the way we played. And that’s where our former coach, Lars Lagerbäck, came in.

When you look at Lars, he doesn’t appear to be a prolific coach. He’s very understated. But, man, he knows what he’s doing. When he arrived in 2011 he began holding these meetings about how we defended. They were long, and honestly, extremely boring. Just so, so boring. But Lars kept going on about it. Positioning. Corners. Throw-ins … none of the fun stuff. In training, we’d play attack vs. defense, just so that we could work on our defensive shape.

Because of that collective spirit, we made the playoffs, and faced Croatia. And when we got a 0–0 draw at home… honestly, I thought we had a chance. Then in Croatia, when they went 1–0 up but got a man sent off, we just needed one goal. One goal. We were so close…

But we never made it.

Croatia won 2–0.

Afterwards our locker room was like a graveyard. Not just because we hadn’t won, but because we hadn’t played well. But then somebody says, “Well… Let’s just go to the Euros then!”

I still don’t know who said it, but I remember thinking, He’s right. Screw this. Let’s just move on to the next one.

So that’s what we did. We started working even harder. And in that qualifying campaign for Euro 2016, we just got better and better. Our fans were a huge part of it, too. When we played Holland at home in October, I remember we went up 1—0, and the stadium fell quiet for a bit … and then …

BOOM, BOOM, HÚH!

I turn around. What was that? It was like the sound of a thunder strike.

BOOM, BOOM, HÚH!

Shivers run down my spine.

BOOM, BOOM, HÚH!

You see, that was the first time our fans did the famous Viking Clap. We may only play in front of 10,000 people, but when they do that clap … man, it feels like 100,000.

That night, I looked at some of the Holland players, and I thought, Whoa … They must be feeling that.

At the end of qualifying, we needed a point at home against Kazakhstan to become the smallest nation to ever reach the Euros. That match was a struggle. I even managed to get sent off. But when we dug out that 0–0 draw…. We went ballistic. I sprinted out on the pitch with my jacket on. We did the Viking Clap so loudly that the whole of Iceland must have heard it. And when we went to a square in Reykjavik later that night, we saw tens of thousands of people waiting for us.

That’s when you realize that you’ve really made your country proud, you know?

Of course, qualifying was one thing. The tournament itself? Who knows? Many people thought we would be lucky just not to be embarrassed.

It’s funny, because I can recall the exact moment when I realized that we had something special. It was after a training session just before the tournament, when Eidur Gudjohnsen came up to me.

He said, “You know, Aron … I really wouldn’t want to play against us.”

I said, “What do you mean?”

He said, “Well, there’s no space. I wanted to play these passes, and I wanted to create chances … But I just couldn’t.”

And that’s when the penny dropped for me. Because if you didn’t know, Eidur is football royalty. He’s played for Pep Guardiola at Barcelona — he’s played with Ronaldinho and Messi. Basically, if Eidur says you have a great defense, you really do have a great defense.

We started off against Portugal. And everyone was talking about what Cristiano Ronaldo would do to us. “How many will he get? Two goals? A hat-trick?”

So when we ground out a 1–1 draw … well, the Portuguese weren’t happy.

Of course, we celebrated. Then I saw that Ronaldo had criticized us for having a “small-country mentality”.

And I thought, “Hang on, we’ve never been at this stage before. You have done it plenty of times. We’re Iceland. Of course we’re gonna be proud!”

We could only draw against Hungary next, so we needed a point against Austria in the final group game. They needed to win. As usual, we defended well. It was 1–1 on 90 minutes…. They’re putting pressure on us…. We clear a corner, we launch a counter-attack…. And we score!

Arnór Traustason! 94th minute! Iceland goes through to the knockout stage!

Unbelievable….

I guess you may have seen the clip of the commentator on Icelandic TV going berserk when we score. It went viral, and no wonder. I mean, the guy genuinely lost it. He was screaming and crying, losing his voice.

But the thing is, everyone in Iceland was feeling like that. It wasn’t just the players and the fans — it was people back home too. We were all going berserk.

As we celebrated on the pitch, I went looking for the drummer in the Iceland fan group. I knew him, so I gave him a hint … He told everyone to be quiet … and then we did our most famous rendition of the Viking Clap. We had never done it like that before, with both the fans and the players together.

It was just pure, spontaneous joy.

BOOM, BOOM, HÚH!

https://cdn.theplayerstribune.com/uploads/4e891484-ttwire_ap_494137560080.jpg?width=1440

[b]We were so relaxed ahead of the Round of 16 game against England. We had reached our goal — everything else was a bonus. We actually had extra motivation, because everyone in Iceland loves the Premier League — they show every single game on TV. Literally. So now we had this great chance to beat our heroes. And just in case anyone wasn’t fully up for it, Eidur made a speech.

He said, “Is everyone full? Do we want any more? Are we still hungry?”

You can imagine the roar of the response.

It was the opposite for England, I think. I almost felt sorry for them. They were under so much pressure, and you could definitely tell. They were making simple mistakes, getting the basics wrong…. They knew the trouble they would be in if they lost to Iceland.

Everyone spoke about how bad England were, but watch the game again. Look at how organized we are. We run. We shut down space. We cover for each other. What Eidur had said after that training session was spot on: We really are horrible to play against.[/b]

When the game was over, I sprinted toward our fans so quickly that I forgot to shake hands with the England players. So if you guys are reading this … sorry!

And, then … well, I know this may sound weird, because I’m this Icelander with all these tattoos and a beard and all that. But as we celebrated, I wanted to cry. Honestly. When we did the Viking Clap with our fans, shivers ran down my spine.

I must admit that it took us a while to come back down to earth after that tournament. But we managed to do it. You see, at our next team meeting, Heimir Hallgrímsson shook us back to life. He had been the joint first coach with Lars during the Euros, but now that Lars had left for the job in Norway, he was in charge.

His message was simple.

We had never made a World Cup in our nation’s history.

So … Why can’t we do it?

https://cdn.theplayerstribune.com/uploads/f6dab7d9-180504sr_arongunnarsson_p1453_0169.jpg?width=1000

I mean, we could have said, “We’re tiny Iceland. Nobody expects us to qualify. We won’t put any extra pressure on ourselves.”

But there was no way that was happening. That’s just not us.

In fact, at the Euros, we had already sent people to scout our World Cup qualifying opponents. That tells you something about our mindset. We wanted more.

Some of us players are nearing the end now. We’re in our late 20s and early 30s, and we know we’ll have to give way for younger players soon. That’s why it’s so important that we pass on the values that have made us successful. [b]I mean, we could go to Russia and try to play like Barcelona. But what would be the point? We’d just be a bad copy. We’d definitely be a worse team.

That’s not what Iceland is about. It never has been.

In a way, I see our style as a symbol of Iceland. Just look at some of our players — I mean, maybe we’re not the most technical. Maybe we’re not the prettiest to look at. But would you want to fight us? I don’t think so.

We’re united. We’re tough. We fear nothing.

And that’s the lesson I want to pass on to our young players in Russia. I want them to realize that if you work hard, and if you have guys who are willing to stick together, anything is possible in football. Anything.[/b] CC: mujtahida


Aron Gunnarsson
ICELAND

Mujtahida:
We were busy here fighting the negativity of our own resident pessimists but we failed to detect the more serious negativity of Rohr. Excuses are the favorite sport of losers and weaklings.

We are average. FACT. but does that mean we should get run over? No. And other less fancied teams have proven to us that a WC team should fight. It's the WC for God sakes. Serve up something!!

You said self believe is paramount. Bro, you just re-echoed the first of the seven hermetic principles which is mentality. Once the mental frame work is wrong, it's just a matter of time before everything collapses. If it is right, it's just a matter of time for everything to pull through.
I repeat:Rohr has poisoned the mind of the team.

safarigirl:
how many goalies save potential own goals?

What did Enyeama do when Yobo helped France score against us?

I have never seen a goalie save an own goal

Oasis007:


Sir, Ighalo is the best to lead the Attack not Iheanacho cos the latter is better off as a SS. Though the primary Assignment of a Striker is to score Goals, but sometimes you need to look beyond that. You need to consider what he can bring on board aside from scoring Goals.

Having Ighalo as a leading Striker with Iheanacho behind him gonna be more effective. Ighalo Stamina gonna be handy to bully and create space for Iheanacho to exploit and do the needful in the Box.

How on earth are you suggesting the Duo of Iheanacho and Iwobi to lead the Attack?! We've debated countlessly on this Thread that Iheanacho is better off as a SS not a leading Striker with Facts and Stats.

Moreso, have you watched Iwobi played as a SS, even for his Club?! What Match(es), how many Minutes?! You can't just pick Players for Roles based on Perception or personal Conviction Sir.

PDPGuy:
I thank Rohr for all he has done for the Super Eagles, especially qualifying the team for the World Cup. But after the June/July AFCON next year, Siasia should be given the reigns of the team.

That way, he will have over 2 years to implement his philosophy on the team before the 2022 World Cup.

In the same vein, the next AFCON should be the last major tournament for Mikel Obi, because I seriously doubt whether he will have the legs for World Cup action in four year’s time. He would even be much slower by that time.

SerVik:
There be ice dragons here. By aron gunnarsson.


I hope our World Cup opponents aren’t reading this, because I’m gonna tell you exactly what has made our tiny country so successful.

But first, I need to explain a little bit about Iceland. Because I’ve noticed that now, whenever I meet people, they’ll say, “Oh, you’re from Iceland? That’s so cool. Northern Lights! Yeah, man!”

After the Euros put our country in the spotlight, it seemed like everybody started going to Reykjavik on vacation.

But I’m not from the vacation part of Iceland.

I’m from the north of Iceland.



Aron Gunnarsson
ICELAND

https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/there-be-ice-dragons-here

kennysville:
Friends, Countrymen, Nairalanders....

It hurts but the truth has to be said. I dont think I was surprised at the result considering the approach our gaffer took. A glance (not even a cursory look) at his team list tells you what to expect. By the time we start to take cursory look, we will all notice the formation had something wrong in it.

If there is anything I have noticed about our coach , its his stubborness and supposed loyalty to his players , most especially the ones that got us qualified. Having said that, I wanna ask a question. Why keep playing a formation that failed against european opponents during the friendlies? Why did we bother to play the friendlies if he was going to keep repeating the same thing? Lets take it back to the friendly against poland. We scraped through that match and we played nothing of note and won the game on the strength of selfish play of moses which resulted in a penalty. Lets not forget that the referee in the said match is an EPL referee ( Michael Oliver). So we got away with a win only to crumble against Serbs. My question is what did we change Before going into the games against both England and Czech? At best we got labelled a 2nd half team.

The way Rohr kept tinkering the team, it felt like a mechanic trying to put the steering wheel of a car inside the trunk and expecting to steer the car by just opening the door and closing it. We all know how machines work. A wrong pulley or cog in the wrong place and ur machine grinds to a halt. Why will he not play with the strengths of his players? Is it a must to play 4-3-2-1? Or 4-3-3? In fact the pertinent question is what exactly is his coaching philosophy? Is it one of winning mentality? Or one of Conservatism? Its like setting ur team up with no plan to win a game and saying if we win, its a plus.... afterall the players are average players. Siasia is known for 90mins attacking football, Keshi is known for being very defensive in his approach but I cant understand what Rohr will tag his own philosophy (get battered in the first half then wake up and put up a seemingly brave fight in the 2nd half so it can appear like the players played well? )

I would have expected him to build heavily on the 3-5-2 formation because it brought about the best in a lot of players. Even blind Bartimeus could see this in all clarity. It is a formation that relied on pace which some of our players seem to have and ultimately would have affected his 23 man list simply because some players WILL never fit in. It is a formation that works with 1-2 quick interchanges of passes. Even if he wanted to accomodate all his beloved players, he could still do so in a 3-5-2. For crying out lout, who says both Shehu and Ebuehi cannot play in the same game at the ssme time?? If he noticed that Ebuehi has pace and can run the wings, why not groom him into a winger than can have sweet ball deliveries in the wings? Oh I forgot! he doesnt have more RBs. This is why you need utility players in your team. Its called plan B,C and D.
Tactically, he goofed big time! I bet he is one of those that prefer Nokia3310 phones to Androids.
Oh gosh now its all adding up! We Should have known from his way of dressing. Wearing short sleeved suits with odd color trainers.

If its not that he planned sabotaging Nigeria, after seeing the way we played the first half against England and Czech, why repeat the same thing at the world cup? Who is he trying to accomodate really? Why play that stupid formation of lone ranger upfront? And as if that wasnt enough, his substitutions were mind boggling.
I see a lot of people blaming Mikel. Mikel cannot split himself into 2 being both a defensive and attacking midfielder at the same time. Lets also not forget that he doesnt have the pace anymore. Common sense should play Mikel in the role he has been TRAINED to play in the last 13years. Who was charged with the responsibility of driving the attack? Oh yeah.... its Mikel. And he is supposed to pass to who? Ighalo? Watch Ighalo and see that all long balls to him upon first touch, he goes to ground. His own idea of being a 9 is drawing fouls from opponents. Only for Moses to come and take the useless resultant free kick into the air for...... nobody in particular. And this is the one we charged with scoring all our goals? Kolewerk now?




AVERAGE PLAYERS
At this juncture, we should stop saying average players. Mikel the leader plied his trade for 11 long years with chelsea. What is average about him? Iheanacho before being offloaded by Baldiola was not a flash in the pan, otherwise there wouldnt av been a buy back clause inserted into his transfer. If we keep tagging them average just because of the clubs they play for, when will they actually be seen as quality? The players we currently have, have all it takes to beat just about any team and i mean every word of it. Our gaffer should be brave enough to attack like his life depended on it. Play the right personnels for the good of the team. Have an attacking mentality and we will see a different super Eagles.

These are the same set of players that qualified, average or not! They are the same players that beat Argentina. Stop calling them Average so you can downplay their prowess!!. If this team fails, its not because we lack quality.... it is down to the coach!!

End of Long Story!!!

I still support the team even in their frailties.
#NAIJA4LIFE

PDPGuy:
I thank Rohr for all he has done for the Super Eagles, especially qualifying the team for the World Cup. But after the June/July AFCON next year, Siasia should be given the reigns of the team.

That way, he will have over 2 years to implement his philosophy on the team before the 2022 World Cup.

In the same vein, the next AFCON should be the last major tournament for Mikel Obi, because I seriously doubt whether he will have the legs for World Cup action in four year’s time. He would even be much slower by that time.

Famocious:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BkLvYwrHPWE/

This is an English team undergoing military drills ahead of World Cup unlike.....

SerVik:
There be ice dragons here. By aron gunnarsson.


I hope our World Cup opponents aren’t reading this, because I’m gonna tell you exactly what has made our tiny country so successful.

But first, I need to explain a little bit about Iceland. Because I’ve noticed that now, whenever I meet people, they’ll say, “Oh, you’re from Iceland? That’s so cool. Northern Lights! Yeah, man!”

After the Euros put our country in the spotlight, it seemed like everybody started going to Reykjavik on vacation.

But I’m not from the vacation part of Iceland.

I’m from the north of Iceland.

If you try to find my town on old maps, it just says: There Be Ice Dragons Here.

My hometown is a place called Akureyri, with about 18,000 people. There wasn’t really much else to do there except play sports, so I began playing football. Of course, I dreamed of becoming a pro. But there were two problems.

First, I could only play in the summer. You see, in the winter, the pitches were covered with … come on, everybody say it together! You guessed it: ice and snow. And I’m not talking about the kind of winters you have in England, where a few centimeters of snow cause panic. I’m talking about proper winters. Several meters of snow. Minus 10 °. Four or five hours of sunlight a day.

Have you seen Game of Thrones? Well, then you get the idea.

So in winter, I played handball instead. But that didn’t solve my second football problem. You see, when the snow finally melted, I didn’t play on grass. That kind of luxury was reserved only for the senior players.

So I had to play on gravel.

Seriously.

Safe to say, it wasn’t ideal. One day I came home with this horrific gash on my leg, and my mother was shocked. Of course, all I had done was to go into a sliding tackle, but you’d think I had been fighting a bear!

The team I started playing for was called Thór, named after the god of thunder. (I’m not making this up — you can ask my mother.) And I wanted to be a footballer so badly. I was doing these sprints, I was hitting the gym … basically, I was working like a madman. But I also knew the odds were stacked against me. I kept asking myself questions, and I didn’t like the answers.

Aron, how many professional footballers have come from Akureyri?

Not many.

And how good can you possibly get by playing only in summer on a gravel pitch?

Probably not very good.

But I chose to ignore the facts. And then came the game-changer. You see, years ago, the Icelandic Football Association invested heavily in these indoor halls with artificial grass. Suddenly every kid in Iceland could play football all year.

Do you realize how big a deal that was for us? All year!

Of course, I immediately moved into my local hall. I made it my living room. They often had to kick me out at night. But there was still this mental block. What I mean by that is, nobody really believed you could win anything as a footballer from Iceland. In fact, this one time, a player on our national team told me a story about how he told his club coach that he dreamed of playing in the Euros.

“That’s a nice thought,” the coach said. “It’s just a shame you’re from Iceland.”

Pretty depressing, right?

Personally I didn’t let that bother me, but I did know I had to leave Iceland to evolve as a player. So when I got the chance to join AZ Alkmaar, in Holland, I took it. I was 17 years old. And man, it was tough. The football was on another level. In my first training session, I got nutmegged four times. I was so embarrassed that I considered jumping on the first flight back to Iceland.

https://cdn.theplayerstribune.com/uploads/d07bf7f8-180504sr_arongunnarsson_p1453_0135.jpg?width=1000

But the hardest part was leaving my family. I spent the first two months holed up in a hotel, calling my mother, crying, saying I didn’t really want to do this. Thankfully, my family encouraged me to keep going, and deep down I was still hell-bent on making it.

I guess all my tears paid off, because 18 months later I got the call for the Iceland senior squad. They were playing a friendly against Belarus in Malta, and I had to get on a flight immediately in order to make it in time. Only I didn’t have a car. During my first year in Holland, I had been riding a bicycle everywhere because I couldn’t afford anything else.

So you know what my mother did? She bought me a scooter.

A red scooter. It looked more like a motorcycle really, which I thought was kind of badass. I actually grew quite attached to it. So when they called me up to the national team, I strapped on my backpack, put on my bike helmet and drove to the train station, where I got the express train to the airport.

Thanks for that one, mum �

So I go off and live my dream, playing for Iceland, and it’s incredible. I fly back to Holland, and I’m still in the clouds. I’m buzzing. I’m a big time footballer now, right? Well, I walk outside the train station to fetch my scooter from the rack where I had parked it … and what do I see?

In the very spot where my scooter was supposed to be, there’s nothing but a single tire with a chain wrapped around it.

Someone had stolen my damn scooter while I was off playing Belarus.

My mother just laughed about it, but I’m telling you, I was genuinely upset! That robbery really brought me down to earth quickly.

A few years later, I was part of the group that qualified for the 2011 under-21 Euros in Denmark. That was a big deal, because Iceland had never done that. By the time we entered qualifying for the 2014 World Cup, many of us guys from the under-21 team had become part of the senior side.

Of course, even with all that young talent, we were never supposed to make the World Cup.

People always used to say, “Iceland? Bah, there’s not many world-class players in Iceland.”

But, actually, with 330,000 people living there … we don’t have many players full-stop.

So we had to be clever about the way we played. And that’s where our former coach, Lars Lagerbäck, came in.

When you look at Lars, he doesn’t appear to be a prolific coach. He’s very understated. But, man, he knows what he’s doing. When he arrived in 2011 he began holding these meetings about how we defended. They were long, and honestly, extremely boring. Just so, so boring. But Lars kept going on about it. Positioning. Corners. Throw-ins … none of the fun stuff. In training, we’d play attack vs. defense, just so that we could work on our defensive shape.

Because of that collective spirit, we made the playoffs, and faced Croatia. And when we got a 0–0 draw at home… honestly, I thought we had a chance. Then in Croatia, when they went 1–0 up but got a man sent off, we just needed one goal. One goal. We were so close…

But we never made it.

Croatia won 2–0.

Afterwards our locker room was like a graveyard. Not just because we hadn’t won, but because we hadn’t played well. But then somebody says, “Well… Let’s just go to the Euros then!”

I still don’t know who said it, but I remember thinking, He’s right. Screw this. Let’s just move on to the next one.

So that’s what we did. We started working even harder. And in that qualifying campaign for Euro 2016, we just got better and better. Our fans were a huge part of it, too. When we played Holland at home in October, I remember we went up 1—0, and the stadium fell quiet for a bit … and then …

BOOM, BOOM, HÚH!

I turn around. What was that? It was like the sound of a thunder strike.

BOOM, BOOM, HÚH!

Shivers run down my spine.

BOOM, BOOM, HÚH!

You see, that was the first time our fans did the famous Viking Clap. We may only play in front of 10,000 people, but when they do that clap … man, it feels like 100,000.

That night, I looked at some of the Holland players, and I thought, Whoa … They must be feeling that.

At the end of qualifying, we needed a point at home against Kazakhstan to become the smallest nation to ever reach the Euros. That match was a struggle. I even managed to get sent off. But when we dug out that 0–0 draw…. We went ballistic. I sprinted out on the pitch with my jacket on. We did the Viking Clap so loudly that the whole of Iceland must have heard it. And when we went to a square in Reykjavik later that night, we saw tens of thousands of people waiting for us.

That’s when you realize that you’ve really made your country proud, you know?

Of course, qualifying was one thing. The tournament itself? Who knows? Many people thought we would be lucky just not to be embarrassed.

It’s funny, because I can recall the exact moment when I realized that we had something special. It was after a training session just before the tournament, when Eidur Gudjohnsen came up to me.

He said, “You know, Aron … I really wouldn’t want to play against us.”

I said, “What do you mean?”

He said, “Well, there’s no space. I wanted to play these passes, and I wanted to create chances … But I just couldn’t.”

And that’s when the penny dropped for me. Because if you didn’t know, Eidur is football royalty. He’s played for Pep Guardiola at Barcelona — he’s played with Ronaldinho and Messi. Basically, if Eidur says you have a great defense, you really do have a great defense.

We started off against Portugal. And everyone was talking about what Cristiano Ronaldo would do to us. “How many will he get? Two goals? A hat-trick?”

So when we ground out a 1–1 draw … well, the Portuguese weren’t happy.

Of course, we celebrated. Then I saw that Ronaldo had criticized us for having a “small-country mentality”.

And I thought, “Hang on, we’ve never been at this stage before. You have done it plenty of times. We’re Iceland. Of course we’re gonna be proud!”

We could only draw against Hungary next, so we needed a point against Austria in the final group game. They needed to win. As usual, we defended well. It was 1–1 on 90 minutes…. They’re putting pressure on us…. We clear a corner, we launch a counter-attack…. And we score!

Arnór Traustason! 94th minute! Iceland goes through to the knockout stage!

Unbelievable….

I guess you may have seen the clip of the commentator on Icelandic TV going berserk when we score. It went viral, and no wonder. I mean, the guy genuinely lost it. He was screaming and crying, losing his voice.

But the thing is, everyone in Iceland was feeling like that. It wasn’t just the players and the fans — it was people back home too. We were all going berserk.

As we celebrated on the pitch, I went looking for the drummer in the Iceland fan group. I knew him, so I gave him a hint … He told everyone to be quiet … and then we did our most famous rendition of the Viking Clap. We had never done it like that before, with both the fans and the players together.

It was just pure, spontaneous joy.

BOOM, BOOM, HÚH!

https://cdn.theplayerstribune.com/uploads/4e891484-ttwire_ap_494137560080.jpg?width=1440

We were so relaxed ahead of the Round of 16 game against England. We had reached our goal — everything else was a bonus. We actually had extra motivation, because everyone in Iceland loves the Premier League — they show every single game on TV. Literally. So now we had this great chance to beat our heroes. And just in case anyone wasn’t fully up for it, Eidur made a speech.

He said, “Is everyone full? Do we want any more? Are we still hungry?”

You can imagine the roar of the response.

It was the opposite for England, I think. I almost felt sorry for them. They were under so much pressure, and you could definitely tell. They were making simple mistakes, getting the basics wrong…. They knew the trouble they would be in if they lost to Iceland.

Everyone spoke about how bad England were, but watch the game again. Look at how organized we are. We run. We shut down space. We cover for each other. What Eidur had said after that training session was spot on: We really are horrible to play against.

When the game was over, I sprinted toward our fans so quickly that I forgot to shake hands with the England players. So if you guys are reading this … sorry!

And, then … well, I know this may sound weird, because I’m this Icelander with all these tattoos and a beard and all that. But as we celebrated, I wanted to cry. Honestly. When we did the Viking Clap with our fans, shivers ran down my spine.

I must admit that it took us a while to come back down to earth after that tournament. But we managed to do it. You see, at our next team meeting, Heimir Hallgrímsson shook us back to life. He had been the joint first coach with Lars during the Euros, but now that Lars had left for the job in Norway, he was in charge.

His message was simple.

We had never made a World Cup in our nation’s history.

So … Why can’t we do it?

https://cdn.theplayerstribune.com/uploads/f6dab7d9-180504sr_arongunnarsson_p1453_0169.jpg?width=1000

I mean, we could have said, “We’re tiny Iceland. Nobody expects us to qualify. We won’t put any extra pressure on ourselves.”

But there was no way that was happening. That’s just not us.

In fact, at the Euros, we had already sent people to scout our World Cup qualifying opponents. That tells you something about our mindset. We wanted more.

Some of us players are nearing the end now. We’re in our late 20s and early 30s, and we know we’ll have to give way for younger players soon. That’s why it’s so important that we pass on the values that have made us successful. I mean, we could go to Russia and try to play like Barcelona. But what would be the point? We’d just be a bad copy. We’d definitely be a worse team.

That’s not what Iceland is about. It never has been.

In a way, I see our style as a symbol of Iceland. Just look at some of our players — I mean, maybe we’re not the most technical. Maybe we’re not the prettiest to look at. But would you want to fight us? I don’t think so.

We’re united. We’re tough. We fear nothing.

And that’s the lesson I want to pass on to our young players in Russia. I want them to realize that if you work hard, and if you have guys who are willing to stick together, anything is possible in football. Anything. CC: mujtahida


Aron Gunnarsson
ICELAND

https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/there-be-ice-dragons-here

Oasis007:


Sir, Ighalo is the best to lead the Attack not Iheanacho cos the latter is better off as a SS. Though the primary Assignment of a Striker is to score Goals, but sometimes you need to look beyond that. You need to consider what he can bring on board aside from scoring Goals.

Having Ighalo as a leading Striker with Iheanacho behind him gonna be more effective. Ighalo Stamina gonna be handy to bully and create space for Iheanacho to exploit and do the needful in the Box.

How on earth are you suggesting the Duo of Iheanacho and Iwobi to lead the Attack?! We've debated countlessly on this Thread that Iheanacho is better off as a SS not a leading Striker with Facts and Stats.

Moreso, have you watched Iwobi played as a SS, even for his Club?! What Match(es), how many Minutes?! You can't just pick Players for Roles based on Perception or personal Conviction Sir.

mank1234:
With Ighalo you won't create chances cos he's always with a defender and doesn't make runs. It's runs that create space for a through pass. It's easier for people to blame the midfielders but if the striker doesn't open up how do you create the chance?

MetalJigsaw:
I think this tag is gradually sneaking back.

aodis:
See ehn, for one with ogu's comment \reply I feel its very very disgusting. Its shows that they really do not care. Yes that's the way I see it. Just like I was listening to sport zone today, if these players loose its business as usual . Honestly I just pray we scale through . if not these sets of eagles are nothing to write hone about. Honestly!