From Iceland — Iceland Smited 6-0 By Switzerland During Possible Mushroom Freakout

Iceland Smited 6-0 By Switzerland During Possible Mushroom Freakout

Published September 8, 2018

Photo by
UEFA

Iceland’s national football team was thrashed 6-0 by Switzerland today in their first game at the brand new UEFA Nation’s League tournament. New manager Erik Hamren looked on as a 2-0 half time deficit turned to 6-0 in a disastrous second half.

Poor form

With key players missing through injury, including captain Aron Gunnarsson, and with several first team players having retired after the World Cup, Iceland are a team in a moment of flux after storming onto the world stage in recent years.

However, this result is not a huge break from form. Iceland haven’t won a game since a friendly against Indonesia in January 2018, notching up two draws and five losses in the meantime, including their heroic but ill-fated first ever foray into the World Cup finals.

Cosmic trip

Poor form aside, this kind of thrashing isn’t something this much-admired and defensively robust side is has been used to in recent years. We at Grapevine started to suspect foul play during the second half, when Birkir Bjarnason headed into his own net.

With autumn coming, we posit that the team misjudged the potency of this year’s crop of Icelandic berserk mushrooms, and were perhaps exploring a cosmic internal dreamworld instead of playing a football match.

You can read our full match commentary in this Twitter thread.

Iceland next face Belgium on Tuesday on the home turf of Laugardalsvöllur. Hopefully, by then, they’ll have nailed the correct mushroom dosage and be ready for battle.

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