Gimli fans cheer after Iceland’s surprise victory over England

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This article was published 26/06/2016 (2860 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

GIMLI — It’s three minutes to heaven, and Hauken Bergmann is watching in near-disbelief as his beloved Icelandic soccer team is holding on for dear life to a 2-1 lead over heavily favoured England on Monday afternoon.

“This is not good for the heart, man,” sighed Bergmann, a native of Iceland who moved to Gimli five years ago.

With every close call, Bergmann and fellow Icelander Kristinn Traustason — along with their wives and children watching the flat screen television at the home of friend Glen Martin — die a little. Live a little. Scream a little more.

“This is the biggest soccer game in Iceland,” Bergmann explains. “If they win this game they’ll change the history of soccer in Iceland for sure.”

Iceland did win against England at Euro 2016, as even non-soccer fans will know by now, edging the nation synonymous with the Beautiful Game. The victory is considered one of the biggest upsets in international soccer — a nation of some 330,000 souls eliminating a country of 54 million — and set off wild celebrations from thousands of fans gathered in places such as Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital.

In Gimli, the place once called New Iceland and settled in 1875 by Icelandic immigrants, the gatherings might have been smaller, but no less passionate.

At the Ship and Plough pub on Gimli’s main street, around a dozen fans (not bad for a Monday afternoon) were glued to the big screen. (The Iceland game versus Hungary last Saturday featured a crowd of about 60.)

Karyn Suchy was there, texting during the game with the Icelandic friends she met on a vacation to Reykjavik only last month.

“People in Iceland aren’t working,” Suchy said. “They’re watching the game together or at home. Every step they get, people are more and more proud. None of them expected Iceland to make it this far.

“It’s brought the Icelandic community together here, too. I don’t think you’d see that many people in here (the pub) for a Bombers game.”

Indeed, the saga of Iceland’s journey at Euro 2016 is a story of Dagjort versus Goliath. It’s been reported that between eight and 10 per cent of the country’s population — over 30,000 — is currently in France to attempt to witness their team’s games. The television ratings in Iceland for some games have been as high as 97 per cent.

“It’s a Cinderella story,” said Oli Olason, who was born in Iceland and now lives in Edmonton. “It’s a small Canadian city (by population), right? Especially this game, where you’re talking about a titan (England) for soccer.

“Iceland is always proud to be relevant on an international scale because of being such a small, isolated country,” added Olason, who just happened to drop into the pub on a day visit from vacationing in Winnipeg.

Pub owner Scott Carman noted that even Gimli residents who don’t have Icelandic backgrounds, or even interest in soccer, have been taking notice.

“There’s a sense that something’s going on,” Carman said, “that people want to be a part of.”

Gary Bunio isn’t a huge soccer fan, either, and has no Icelandic blood. But that didn’t stop him from rooting for Our Boys, the national team’s given name.

“We’ve been coming up here for years,” Bunio said. “So what else would you do but cheer for Iceland?”

But for Bergmann and Traustason, who work as carpet layers, what transpired on a soccer pitch in far-away France on Monday was much more than a game.

When the final whistle sounded, they were on their iPhones watching the scenes in Reykjavik, where tens of thousands of their countrymen were watching the broadcast outdoors on big screen TVs in public squares. Bergmann was texting excitedly with friends in his hometown of Akureyri, in northern Iceland.

“This is unbelievable,” he said. “I mean, it was so unrealistic to think we could beat them (England). But you hope. This is a fairy tale story, like the Jamaican bobsled team at the Olympics.

Icelanders have a history of passionately supporting their sporting heros, in particular at World’s Strongest Men competitions and handball.

But the rise of the national soccer team is a relatively new phenomenon, since the country spent the last decade developing world-class youth programs and indoor facilities. Still, it should be noted that one of the team’s coaches, Heimir Hallgrimsson, is a part-time dentist.

“When we accomplish something at an international scale — and when you’re such a small country in the middle of nowhere — it makes you so proud that you have the attention of the whole world,” Bergmann said. “This is not just for soccer fans, it’s everybody. It’s your children, it’s your grandmother. It’s the pride of a nation.”

“It’s hard to express,” Traustason added. “This is so huge. Now we really are at the top.”

Not quite. With the victory, the Our Boys advance to the quarter-finals versus the French, yet another world soccer superpower.

But now, the Icelanders, who were once just happy to be there, have begun to re-evaluated the meaning of the word “unbelievable”.

“I’m starting to think we can beat anybody now,” Traustason said. “If we can beat England…”

Perhaps Bergmann was wrong. For Icelanders, maybe this is good for the heart, after all. 

randy.turner@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @randyturner15