The adventure is over but what an adventure it has been. Three weeks after touching down on French soil Iceland are finally obliged to return home, the tournament debutants fatally defeated in their fifth match at Euro 2016.
Points were taken off Portugal and Hungary before Austria and England were beaten; Iceland have exceeded even the most optimistic of expectations and stolen hearts from across the continent along the way.
A nation that is home to fewer than 330,000 people has punched above its weight to an astonishing extent, leaving bigger and supposedly better teams scratching their heads and wondering how exactly they had been unable to overcome a country with more volcanoes than professional footballers and a part-time dentist as its joint-manager.
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A quarter-final tie against France was a step too far, however.
Iceland actually started well on Sunday evening, testing a far-from-solid French backline with long diagonal passes in the opening minutes. They pushed bodies forward in support of strikers Kolbeinn Sigthorsson and Jon Dadi Bodvarsson, tried their luck with a couple of shots from the edge of the box and held a relatively high defensive line when their opponents had the ball. Iceland have undoubtedly been this competition’s principal underdogs, but they have never lacked ambition.
France soon took control, though, and while Olivier Giroud’s opener in the 12th minute came marginally against the run of play, there could be no doubting that Didier Deschamps’ men had been the better team by the time the referee blew his whistle to bring the first half to a close. A 4-0 lead at the break effectively sealed their passage to the semi-finals, with Iceland fully aware that their unlikely dream was on the brink of ending.
Lars Lagerback and Heimir Hallgrimsson’s charges have continually demonstrated magnificent doggedness and resilience this summer, however, and those qualities were on display once again at the Stade de France.
They could not quite draw level this time – as they had done against Portugal in their opening encounter, much to the dismay of Cristiano Ronaldo – or equalise and then take the lead, as England had allowed them to do in the round of 16.
But although their chances of progression were over, Iceland dug in after the interval, scoring twice to end an extraordinary tournament on a high.
This would have been unthinkable just 10 years ago, when football fans in Iceland watched a World Cup in Germany that their side had failed to qualify for after amassing only four points from 10 matches against Malta, Bulgaria, Hungary, Sweden and Croatia.
Things did not get any better in qualification for Euro 2008, the 2010 World Cup or the European Championship in Poland and Ukraine four years ago, but Iceland did begin to improve as the campaign to reach the last World Cup in Brazil kicked off in September 2012. In the end they narrowly missed out on one of the 32 places available as Croatia emerged victorious from a tight two-legged play-off between the teams, but their performances and results in that period were a sign of positive things to come.
The expansion of the Euros certainly boosted Iceland’s chances of qualifying this time around, but finishing above Turkey and the Netherlands in their group was still an astonishing accomplishment.
Even more remarkable is the fact that they have not simply made up the numbers in their first ever finals, instead taking second spot in Group F and knocking out one of the world’s heavyweights in the last 16.
Their time in the tournament may now be up but Iceland have left an indelible mark on it, their spirit, grit, organisation and adherence to a well-defined game plan providing a blueprint which other smaller nations should now attempt to follow.
France may have won in Paris on Sunday night, but Iceland did not lose.
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