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Iceland- A Lesson to continuous progress in Football. What to Learn

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    Iceland- A Lesson to continuous progress in Football. What to Learn

    I am not a liar to say I follow Asian football much. I follow the qualifiers, watch most TM matches, and try to watch as many Asian Cup games (of other teams) as possible, and the qualifiers of other teams in TM matches. Having said that, I have an unhealthy obsession with European football, especially international and I follow every single qualifier very close and for years have done so.

    I used to remember there was an island with population of 300,000 who used to defend with 10 men behind the ball and hoof the ball to Eidur Gudjansson in hope of some magic. They'd almost always crash out with 4/6 points they'd get from a shit team like San Marino and such and this was a vicious loop in their football with bare exceptions (Like the 2004 qualifying campaign in which they almost made the play offs). Their club teams would barely produce any thing in Europe and would get mauled by Estonian/Kazakhstan/Moldovan teams. Their players? what players? it's a population of 300,000 and Handball was the national sport. There weren't even many playable pitches in Iceland during the cold winter.

    Last year this time, I went to watch Iceland play Croatia with Icelandic Toronto community and that's how far they had come. Many dismissed it because they said it was an easy group, and they got lucky. They narrowly lost to Croatia and missed out on ticket to Brazil. Today, they are topping the group A of Euro qualifiers having won 3 out of 3, 8 goals scored and 0 conceded and have beaten Turkey and Netherlands.
    During the Euro 2008 qualifiers, Iceland lost 4-0 to Latvia in Riga, 3 days ago they played in the exact same venue and Iceland won 3-0.

    So what happened? How come a nation which has less population than Luxambourg who nearly announced national bankruptcy in 2008 grow in football ? What is behind their progress and they'll be cracking FIFA's top 30 list in the new rankings after today's win (And before someone says it doesn't matter, IT DOES. In July, FIFA will draw groups for WC2018 qualifiers and seeding is determined based on FIFA rankings).

    This process started in early 2000s. and is reaping awards NOW..and even if you look at their team, it's a very young core. So here is how a proper FA managed to produce the most over-achieving footballing nation in the world at the moment (based on population) .

    STEP 1) INCOMPETENT HEAD OF FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION WAS REPLACED
    STEP 2) COACHES ACTUALLY ATTEND CLASSES BEFORE MANAGING PLAYERS
    Even youth coaches nowadays have to have at least UEFA B license to be able to operate in Iceland. They focused on first sending their coaches abroad to obtain degrees, attend practices and seminars of more developed footballing nations, and put a lot of emphasis on coaching. They even imported German coaches for the youth team (Iceland first made an impact in European football 4-5 years ago in u-21 tournaments and now most of those guys are doing the same for the main NT).
    in 2010 when 630 people attended coaching courses in the country. 0,2% of the ENTIRE population




    STEP 3) CHANGE OF STRUCTURE IN CLUBS AND LEAGUE

    the KSI (Iceland's IFF) made mandatory changes to structure of management for all Icelandic clubs in all divisions and put in some strict rules about how qualified coaches of teams should be. As a result of those changes, this year an Icelandic club Stjarnan (With stadium capacity of 1000) made it to the play-off round of the Europa League vs. Intermilan after they had beaten clubs from Wales, Motherwell of Scotland, and Lech Poznan of Poland all over 2 legs. Here are the required qualifications imposed:

    First team:

    Head coach: At least a UEFA A degree.

    Assistant coach: At least a UEFA B degree.

    Youth teams:

    Head of youth coaching/youth developement: At least a UEFA A degree.

    Youth team coaches:

    -From 12 years and up: At least a UEFA B degree.

    -From 11 years and down: At least finished the two first courses of UEFA B. 2


    STEP 4) IMPROVING FACILITIEShttp://sportbloggid.net/?p=613 and my interactions with a few Icelanders I met in Reykjavik and Selfoss in May when we discussed football.

    #2
    Very well written article.. Enjoyed reading it

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      #3
      What a great read. Thank you for that. Very impressed with what they have done

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        #4

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          #5
          Also they play football to their own strengths.
          For example today they beat holland all while only having 26% of possession!

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            #6
            "Even youth coaches nowadays have to have at least UEFA B license to be able to operate in Iceland."

            how many coaches do we have in Iran today that have a UEFA B license ? an honest question, and I really don't know the answer to it.
            “It is easier to fool the people, than to convince them they have been fooled." - Mark Twain

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              #7
              great post, one of the best of the year imo

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                #8
                Iceland- A Lesson to continuous progress in Football. What to Learn

                Fantastic, informative read. Thank you very much.
                Kudos to you and iceland.
                IRI's politics is no different than handling a pressure cooker ..... As the pressure builds up, you slowly let the steam out just a tad bit so that you don't see overflow, and once the pressure from below is less, you put the lid down again and raise the temperature.

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                  #9
                  All this you have pointed out is great, but in iran we do not have competent people in place to full implement a correct system with order and structure.
                  This is great, but i means nothing , until the day all the teams are privately owned and operated, like a business, then the owners will care enough to get the right people in place to get the best results. Really look at our league, it really doesn't matter who wins the league or loses , all the teams are owned and operated by the government, anyway.

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                    #10
                    Iceland- A Lesson to continuous progress in Football. What to Learn

                    Very well written and interesting. Thanks for the great information. This was the topic on 90 today as well.


                    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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                      #11
                      Thanks for that, very well thought through.

                      Don't think we will get anywhere while IR is in power, so hope is not high.

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                        #12
                        Iceland- A Lesson to continuous progress in Football. What to Learn

                        Well said. Btw funny thing is that most people on PFDC dont even want players from Norway and Swedish league, yet Iceland tops their group with 9 out of 3 while lots of their squad plays in those leagues. One of their defenders even played in League Two for a while..Van Persie and Robben couldnt do shit.

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                          #13
                          I was going to start a thread on tis today, so I'm glad you beat me to it. Very well written. They were simply amazing yesterday, hustled well and beat the Dutch to most of the important balls, very physical, disciplined and quick on counters.

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                            #14
                            Originally posted by Kiarash View Post
                            Well said. Btw funny thing is that most people on PFDC dont even want players from Norway and Swedish league, yet Iceland tops their group with 9 out of 3 while lots of their squad plays in those leagues. One of their defenders even played in League Two for a while..Van Persie and Robben couldnt do shit.
                            Iranian defenders outclassed their opponents in their games vs Argentina and Nigeria. Argentina and Nigeria should be very happy if they would have any Argentinian defenders in the IPL and most definately call them up. No one is saying we shouldnt invite players from those leagues. We're saying calm the fvck down and dont jizz in your pants about benched players in those leagues who have shown nothing special, and calm down about their 2nd division players.

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                              #15

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