Iceland creates soccer miracle in World Cup qualification!
The 2018 FIFA World Cup is scheduled to take place in Russia from June 14 to July 15 2018, after the country was awarded the hosting rights on 2 December 2010. The final tournament will involve 32 national teams, which include the automatically qualified host team and 31 other teams determined through qualifying competitions. One team of note this year – Iceland! Iceland qualified for Euro 2016 last year, and this is the second time it has created a soccer miracle. The FIFA Ranking position of Iceland is now 21, last updated on Oct 2017. “… This proves that their victory ovre England during the Eruo tournament wasn’t just a coincidence,” Inque Park (11B) stated, “and that tactics and teamwork plays a bigger role than each player’s individual skills.”
As the smallest country to make the World Cup, Iceland has set the record with a population of around 334,000, which might stand forever. In 1930, Paraguay was the smallest country with a population of around 850,000. After 87 years, Iceland has cut more than half of that number.
Iceland defeated Kosovo 2-0 on Monday, Oct 9th, to top its UEFA qualifying group (Group I, which consists of Iceland, Croatia, Ukraine, Turkey, Finland, and Kosovo). According to the United Nations, the last estimate of Iceland’s population was 334,252. Shanghai’s population alone, 24.15 million, is over 70 times that number.
On the other hand, the three countries with the greatest population – the United States, China, and India – didn’t make it to the final. There’s a great chance that Iceland takes soccer training more seriously than other countries. It was reported that Iceland has over 20,000 registered soccer players, equivalent to 5 percent of the whole Icelandic population. And one in 500 people in Iceland have a UEFA B license or higher, meaning some players as young as 5 years old start training under professional coaches.
However, although Iceland has managed to advance, the team will have a new challenge to face. It has already accomplished its goal of making it to the final phase in the World Cup, thus it is difficult to be motivated again for a higher expectation. Yet it’s still possible that Iceland can create a miracle again – it’s definitely something worth watching.
Source: http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/teams/team=43951/index.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_FIFA_World_Cup
Featured image courtesy of Chensiyuan (Wikimedia Commons)