Beat the Netherlands 2-0 today, maybe knocking them out of Euro 2016. Seriously, Iceland?
I wonder if Aron Johannsson is regretting his decision to go with team USA.
It looks like Iceland came ready to play and the Netherlands didn’t. A loss to Italy, followed by a loss to the Czech Republic, followed by a tough win against Kazakhstan. Iceland, alone, can’t keep the Netherlands out.
This was written before the Iceland/Netherlands match -
*Since reaching the semi-finals of the World Cup earlier this year, things have not gone smoothly for new boss Guus Hiddink.
A friendly defeat to Italy was followed up by a shock Euro 2016 qualifying loss at the hands of the Czech Republic, and Friday night’s win over 10-man Kazakhstan was hardly plain-sailing.
Despite being on home soil the Dutch fell behind on 17 minutes and it took until just after the hour-mark for them to level things up before going on to win 3-1.
With their first win on the board the Netherlands will now look to complete an October double at the expense of Iceland, and Paddy Power make Hiddink’s men their 4/7 favourites in the match betting for this clash*.
Certainly a shock result, but not more so than Germany losing to Poland, Albania drawing with Denmark, and Slovakia beating Spain. Yes, Iceland are one of the weaker European teams and not expected to come close to qualifying, but they’re not a joke team like San Marino or Gibraltar by any means.
As has been said, it puts Holland in a spot of bother but they can still qualify provided they up their game and win most of their remaining matches.
I don’t know who Aron Johansson is but I’m sure he has a much greater chance of competing on the world stage by representing USA than Iceland.
I caught the second half (I was watching a recording of England-Estonia before, I managed to forget it was on on Sunday), it really wasn’t a lucky win. Iceland attacked solidly, had plenty of chances and The Netherlands seemed to have nothing.
Robben was getting booed every time he got the ball. Did he do one of his usual comical dives again at some point in the first half?
Iceland wasn’t that far from reaching the World Cup finals in Brazil. They lost the play in against Croatia, 2-0 aggregate. They are not really that weak of a side.
Yeah, I’m probably underrating them - perhaps I should have said while they are not favourites to qualify, they may come close.