As the old Icelandic proverbs go: “smite waits for no man” and “the smiting horde gathers no volcanic moss.” With this in mind, the Icelandic men’s national football team continued to warm up for their inevitable World Cup win this year by casually plundering the nation of Indonesia, population 261m. For more on this, and other stories from inside the Iceland camp, here’s our rundown of all the latest smiting news.
Indonesia burns
On January 11th, the Icelandic men’s national football team inflicted a mighty thrashing on Indonesia’s select XI recently in an “unfriendly” pre-World Cup run out. Amidst rumours that the selected XI in question would be nine rhinoceroses in defence, an elephant in goal, and a tiger up front, in the end, the opposition turned out to be just eleven hapless Indonesian footballers.
Iceland ran riot on a pitch flooded by the tears of the Indonesian nation, netting six times against the home side. Shot after flaming shot was smashed into the enemy goal until it was just two smouldering, smashed, smoking posts with a gibbering, wild-eyed goalkeeper rolling around in the wreckage muttering about the coming of a new ice age.
Albert strikes
In the second game on January 14th, Iceland smote the actual national football team of Indonesia 4-1, with 20-year-old stripling warlord Albert “The Shin Splinterer” Guðmundsson battering in a mighty hat trick. As previously reported, Albert is the latest product of a footballing dynasty that reaches back to Iceland’s very first professional footballer, Albert Guðmundsson, who was Arsenal FC’s second ever foreign signing way back in 1946, and went on to play for AC Milan. Smiting, it seems, runs in the family.
Russia freezes
In the Siberian town of Oymyakon, located 3,300km east of Moscow, temperatures dropped to -62°C this week—colder than the average equatorial temperature on the surface of the planet Mars. Staring up wild-eyed and frozen-lash’d into the freezing, churning maelstrom that settled over the town, locals reported hearing giant beating wings and a terrible screeching ringing down through the sky, and seeing a giant horn-helmeted head peering down over the town. As one local mage grimly muttered: “The ice age cometh. We are all doomed.”
Messi trembles
After the Indonesia raid, and this powerful new omen, Iceland are firmly on track to humble Argentina—and their twinkle-toed tackle-and-tax-dodging ballerina Lionel Messi—in the World Cup group stages. Victory is certain, having been seen written in the entrails of smited enemies, so the horde are currently chilling and downing a few meads before setting their mind to the task ahead.
That said, it does sound like a strategy might be in the offing. “We haven’t planned how to stop him,” said assistant manager Helgi “The Reykjavík Reaver” Kolviðsson. “But we’ve played against a lot of other good players too, and we work as a team—that is our strength.” So, to read between the lines, the Icelandic defence may crush Lionel the same gruesomely effective way that The Mountain (literally) crushed Prince Oberyn in Game of Thrones, while captain Aron distracts the ref with his beard full of confusing magic. Easy.
Italy beckons?
After replacing dishevelled hasn’t-been Glenn Whelan at half-time against Nottingham Forest on January 13th, the young Icelandic buck, Birkir Bjarnason, finally showed Aston Villa fans what he’s all about. Many Villans took to social media to praise Bjarki’s galloping performance after a frustrating spell at the Birmingham club, but it seems they may have already seen the last of him. With Serie A club SPAL reportedly interested, regular minutes would benefit Bjarki before the World Cup, where the blonde bombshell will be hoping to get on the scoresheet, as he did against Portugal in Euro 2016.
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