The Iceland national football team is the national football team of Iceland and is controlled by the Football Association of Iceland. It has never advanced to the finals of any major international competition.
For the Euro 2004, Iceland were led by Ásgeir Sigurvinsson topping the group table for a while, with 4 wins and even held Germany to a 0–0 draw in Reykjavík, however both Germany and Scotland had a game in hand to them and both used them to their maximum potential, with Scotland beating Lithuania and Germany beat Scotland in Germany's penultimate game. Iceland failed to grind a result in their final game against Germany, and Scotland pipped them to a play-off place. Iceland have failed to match this since, finishing on just 4 points for the 2006 World Cup qualifiers and 8 points from their Euro 2008 qualifying campaign.
Perhaps the most notable match was a friendly against Estonia on 24 April 1996 in Tallinn. During the second half of this match, Eiður Guðjohnsen entered as a substitute for his father Arnór. This marked the first time that a father and son played in the same international match. Another landmark for Icelandic football was the 2–0 upset victory over Italy in a friendly at Laugardalsvöllur, 18 August 2004 with 20,204 fans in attendance, an Icelandic record.
Read more about Iceland National Football Team: World Cup Record, European Championship Record, All–time Record Against All Nations, 2010 FIFA World Cup Qualification, Current Squad, Most Capped Icelandic Players, National Coaches
Famous quotes containing the words football team, national, football and/or team:
“You can’t be a Real Country unless you have A BEER and an airline—it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a BEER.”
—Frank Zappa (1940–1993)
“The return of the asymmetrical Saturday was one of those small events that were interior, local, almost civic and which, in tranquil lives and closed societies, create a sort of national bond and become the favorite theme of conversation, of jokes and of stories exaggerated with pleasure: it would have been a ready- made seed for a legendary cycle, had any of us leanings toward the epic.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“You can’t be a Real Country unless you have A BEER and an airline—it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a BEER.”
—Frank Zappa (1940–1993)
“I also heard the whooping of the ice in the pond, my great bed-fellow in that part of Concord, as if it were restless in its bed and would fain turn over, were troubled with flatulency and bad dreams; or I was waked by the cracking of the ground by the frost, as if some one had driven a team against my door, and in the morning would find a crack in the earth a quarter of a mile long and a third of an inch wide.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)