🎥 World Cup countdown: The first Icelanders to play at a World Cup | OneFootball

Aaron Gunnarson was 23 when he was named as captain of the Icelandic national team.

The game in question was the friendly against France that ended 3-2, played in the charming village of Valenciennes, in northern France.

Six years later, Gunnarsson will be Iceland’s captain at the 2018 World Cup, the country’s first appearance in its history.

Gunnarsson plays as a midfielder in Cardiff who have just been promoted to the Premier League. He also became famous for his long throw-ins and thick Viking beard.

Surely his nation will remember him for eternity, as he will be the captain of the first 23 Icelanders who have ever participated in a World Cup.

And we at Onefootball are here to convince you that you should support them this summer…

Iceland is the nation with lowest population to ever qualify for a World Cup: it has about 335,000 inhabitants (to give you an idea, less than Florence). A country with less than one million inhabitants has never been to the World Cup before.

Let’s make two calculations: if half the inhabitants of Iceland are women and the other half remove men over 35 and under 18 and overweight, that leaves you with 23,000 people.

Maybe among the U-18 Icelanders the new Lionel Messi is hiding? We could never know!

So if you were born in Iceland and you are between the ages of 20 and 32, there would be a very good chance that the coach Heimir Hallgrímsson will call you up to the squad.

Back to Gunnarsson. In 2012 Iceland was ranked 131th in the FIFA ranking of the strongest teams in the world; now they are in 22nd place, ahead of the Netherlands and five positions behind Italy (who aren’t even going to Russia).

Almost all the strongest Icelandic players obviously play abroad: out of 23 players summoned for the World Cup final stage, only 2 play in the Icelandic league and the strongest players still play in the Premier League or in Ligue 1.

We at Onefootball have a dream: after the feat of the last European Championship, why not to cheer on Iceland?

Look how epic this kit announcement is and tell me you don’t want to support this nation. ICELAND FOR GLORY!