The Icelandic National Team’s World Cup strip has been unveiled.
The strip is a departure from the classic flag-striped shirt of yore, as worn by the shrieking, bloodthirsty war party who made their famous raid on the Euro 2016 tournament. The new kit instead features curious sleeves, speckled in red, on all three iterations.
One Icelandic journalist, Helgi Seljan, has perhaps cracked the code of the peculiar design. It brought his mind the Icelandic phrase “Blóðugur upp að öxlum,” which translates as “Blood up to the shoulders.”
The old saying was apparently used in relation to particularly bloody tasks—say, butchery, or working in a fish factory—but it has also been used to refer to conflict with neighbouring nations, in the distant past.
As the side fearlessly smite their way to their Inevitable World Cup Winning Destiny, the kit serves as a chilling warning to the opposition: step aside, lest ye be smited into several pieces. Iceland ain’t going to Russia to mess round, y’all.
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