From Zagreb to Russia: Eidur Gudjohnsen on the Icelandic revolution

Exclusive interview: Ahead of Iceland's World Cup opener against Argentina, The Independent talks to the former Chelsea man about his country's remarkable rise and rise on the international stage

'This generation is a generation of players that combine so well, there's such a unity, there's such a positivity within the group' (Getty)

It was as waves of nerves rippled across the dugout that Eidur Gudjohnsen sat there, composed and convinced of what was to come. An oasis of calm, caught in a maelstrom. The devastation being wrought, though, would go on to cement his nation’s legend.

As the clock ticked down, urged on by the rhythmic claps of thunder that seemed to shake the stadium to its very core, the storm intensified. England’s players surged forward in their masses, a quickening sense of dread and panic filling their veins. The tension mounted. Fans of both teams turned to each another, unable to fathom what was unfolding in front of their very eyes. But still, amid such bedlam, Gudjohnsen never stopped believing. He knew where this was going.

“The last half an hour, 20 minutes, I was on the bench and I never felt nervous at all that we might lose this or even that the game would go into extra-time,” he says. “I had complete self-belief.”

The 20 minutes came and went. In a final roll of the dice, Roy Hodgson threw on Marcus Rashford. The youngster posed more problems for the Icelandic defence in four minutes than most of those who had gone before - but still it wasn’t enough. The damage had been done. The whistle was blown moments later, and that was that.

But to ensure this tale’s remarkable denouement can be fully appreciated, Gudjohnsen pushes pause on the video tape and rewinds back to Zagreb, November 2013. It was here, following a 2-0 loss against Croatia, that Iceland’s journey to Euro 2016 and Russia 2018 first began.

In the agony of defeat - having missed out on a place at the 2014 World Cup - an idea took form. Slowly but surely, it began to displace the sense of disappointment that followed that fateful night in Zagreb.

“I think the players took that experience [of defeat] with them and instead of dwelling too much on the disappointment of not going to the World Cup, we managed to go the opposite way and say 'Right, the Euros are coming up, a new tournament, let's make this first one'. So we managed to build on that. And this generation is a generation of players that combine so well, there's such a unity, there's such a positivity within the group.

“Since then, it's more or less been the same players, the same generation with a mixture of experience and a bit of youth coming in. But the core of the group has been the same.”

Gudjohnsen also points to the increased investments made in Iceland’s footballing facilities. At the turn of the millennium, this spiky outcrop in the Atlantic got serious about Knattspyrna – quite literally, “ball-kicking” – and started building state-of-the-art ‘football halls’. Heated, open to all and staffed by qualified coaches, these indoor facilities, constructed by clubs and local authorities, kick-started a footballing revolution that would later express itself most fully at France 2016.

At the same time, a serious commitment was made to elite coaching. Flush with TV money from Uefa, Iceland developed a hugely popular training scheme that fed the population’s insatiable appetite for football. As of 2016, Iceland had around 600 qualified coaches, 400 of whom held Uefa B licences. That amounts to one coach per 825 people. In England, this number falls to one per 11,000.

Icelandic football is benefiting from increased investments in football made at the turn of the millennium (Getty)

“They [Iceland’s senior team] are the first generation that has benefited from facilities being changed in Iceland,” Gudjohnsen says. “About 10-15 years ago the government, together with the Football Association, decided ‘Right, we need better facilities to be able to play football all year long'. They started building all these full-sized, indoor 3G pitches where this generation is the first that's benefited from this.”

Gudjohnsen adds that the size of Iceland’s population has helped to grease the wheels of this grassroots revolution. With the majority of the country’s 334,252 inhabitants clustered around Reykjavik, the capital, and Akureyri in the north, it means that those with a taste for Knattspyrna rarely have to travel far to access facilities.

“We cannot forget that we are, in one way, very privileged that we're such a small population so to organise, for example, a tournament for children is very easy because they don't have to travel very far. When kids go to training, they can go on their bikes or even walk from school or wherever they are living because the facilities are there just around the corner. So in that sense it helps a lot as well; just look at Reykjavik and its greater area, which is where the majority of teams that play football in Iceland are based.”

The Laugardalsvollur National Stadium in Reykjavik - home to Iceland's senior team (Getty)

Interesting enough, Gudjohnsen admits that the surge in enthusiasm for football has seen the country’s other sports suffer. “There's such an atmosphere now towards football in the younger generation that because of the success of the national team it has almost taken away from other sports in Iceland. Everyone just wants to play football now. So handball has suffered a little bit, basketball a little bit more, so it's not all positivity if you look at it in a broader picture.

“But for the football, specifically, it's been fantastic.”

And that’s putting it mildly. Iceland have surpassed all expectations in what they’ve achieved over the past three years, making history in the process while inspiring a new generation of footballers. It’s an experience that has been shared by all, not just those on the pitch.

For Gudjohnsen, this made France 2016 all the more special. “It was just an amazing experience and I think, for us, the excitement of the people at home, the excitement of the players, the adrenaline that came with it, it all helped. There was so much positivity, everyone was going there to support us, to take in the experience. And we always have the 'luck' with us that we're the underdogs - which is always a nice position to be in when the expectation levels are kept quite low. So we went literally went there to take it all in.”

Iceland's famous victory against England at France 2016 will live long in the memory (Getty)

Iceland did just that – and managed to reach the quarter-finals in the process. “The most important thing was the Portugal game because we go into the group and all of a sudden you're playing against the biggest team in the group. If you'd asked anyone before the game it would have been difficult to find someone in the street that would say 'no Iceland will beat them'. So a draw was the most fantastic result for us. That was a standout moment and obviously beating England was...”

Gudjohnsen tails off, as if he’s reliving the moment again, trying to find the words to describe the sensation. Instead, he switches focus to Hodgson's men - at which point the conversation takes a turn for the worse. Donning his pathologist's hat, the Icelander peels back the skin to poke and prod at the lifeless English form that was eventually wheeled out of the Allianz Riviera on that fateful summer evening. It makes for painful listening for any Englishman.

The former Chelsea man says that England lacked ideas in their clash against Iceland (188BET) (Getty)

"We knew all the players, we knew who they played for, they didn't have to run through the teams and say he plays like that. We knew them all. We managed to use to our advantage that any incident during the game which could upset England will add the pressure on them. We were very aware of the pressure they were under and probably almost everyone who follows the England game were already looking past us before the game.

"Of course we went 1-0 down after 10 minutes, so it doesn't always go to plan. But as soon as we equalised we felt 'Okay, this is where the pressure goes back on them' and then we managed to go 2-1 up and even at half-time we were saying 'We've got this game'.

“It was self-belief [in the changing room at half-time] because we felt comfortable in the game, we felt that England didn't come up with many ideas on how to break us down. Obviously our goalkeeper made a number of crucial saves at crucial times, which is what you need in football … I just felt the England team lacked ideas.”

Two years on, Iceland now have the chance to do it all over again – except, this time, on the biggest stage of all.

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