Stade de Nice, 27 June 2016, round of sixteen.
The size of it
Iceland's population is around three hundred and thirty thousand. It is smaller than a mid-sized English city. The country had never qualified for a European Championship or a World Cup.
The build-up was not an accident. From the early 2000s the federation put money into indoor pitches, so that children could train through the winter, and into coaching qualifications. By 2016 Iceland had one UEFA-licensed coach for every few hundred people.
The two coaches
Iceland were managed jointly by Lars Lagerback, a Swede who had taken Sweden to five tournaments, and Heimir Hallgrimsson, an Icelander who was a practising dentist and did not give the practice up.
Hallgrimsson also used to brief the supporters' club in a pub before matches.
The group
Iceland drew with Portugal, drew with Hungary and beat Austria with a goal in stoppage time to finish second, ahead of Portugal, who went on to win the tournament.
The England match
Wayne Rooney scored a penalty after four minutes. Ragnar Sigurdsson equalised in the sixth, from a long throw taken by Aron Gunnarsson that went through the England defence.
In the eighteenth minute Kolbeinn Sigthorsson scored the second, which the England goalkeeper got a hand to.
England had the ball for most of the remaining seventy minutes and did not score again. Roy Hodgson resigned in the stadium.
After
France beat Iceland five two in the quarter-final. Iceland scored twice and the crowd stayed to do the slow hand clap that the tournament had adopted from them.
Iceland qualified for the World Cup two years later, and have not qualified for anything since.