Against the Elements: The Eruption of Icelandic Football (Matt McGinn)
Chapter 13: Iceland v Croatia
McGinn travels to Vestmannaeyjar, an archipelago off the southwest coast of Iceland.
He notes the islands' disproportionate development of Icelandic's top players and profiles a few survivors of a 1973 volcano eruption before watching the Iceland men's team's 2-1 loss to Croatia in the group stage of the 2018 World Cup.
Against the Elements: The Eruption of Icelandic Football (Matt McGinn)
Chapter 12: Our Girls
McGinn focuses on women's soccer in Iceland, specifically the women's national team's successes qualifying for major tournaments in 2009, 2013, and 2017.
He also puts the country's opportunities and successes in women's soccer within the context of the women's rights movement in Iceland since a national strike in October 1975 gradually led to the country becoming "demonstrably, the best place in the world to be a woman."
Against the Elements: The Eruption of Icelandic Football (Matt McGinn)
Chapter 11: Euro 2016, Narrated by Birkir Már Sævarsson
This chapter is a first-person narrative about the Icelandic men's national team's historic qualification for the 2016 Euros, and the team's remarkable tournament run the included qualification from the group stage and an upset of England in the Round of 16.
Sævarsson's career in Norway (Brann) and Sweden (Hammarby) was sandwiched with youth and senior stints at the Icelandic club Valur.
Against the Elements: The Eruption of Icelandic Football (Matt McGinn)
Chapter 10: Golden Boys
McGinn writes about Iceland's "Golden Generation" of male players, in particular a half-dozen players born between 1988 and 1990 who grew up playing with each other on Iceland's youth and senior teams.
Against the Elements: The Eruption of Icelandic Football (Matt McGinn)
Chapter 9: Lars and Heimar
McGinn profiles Lars Lagerbäck and Hiemar Hallgrímsson, two head coaches of the Icelandic men's national team who also had an overlapping tenure as co-coaches in the program.
Against the Elements: The Eruption of Icelandic Football (Matt McGinn)
Chapter 8: The Coaches
McGinn summarizes the long-term planning investments Iceland's federation and clubs have devoted to coach education, coach development, and player development.
Against the Elements: The Eruption of Icelandic Football (Matt McGinn)
Chapter 7: Size Matters
McGinn uses the small-but-mighty music industry in Iceland as an analogy for Icelandic soccer, especially the benefits (and some drawbacks) associated with developing both music talent and soccer talent in a relatively small community.
Against the Elements: The Eruption of Icelandic Football (Matt McGinn)
Chapter 6: Joining the Network
McGinn argues that two developments in the 1990s played sizable roles in Iceland's evolution from an insular soccer country to the integrated soccer country it is today. Those two developments were Iceland's membership in the European Economic Area (EEA) in 1994, and the European Court of Justice's "Bosman Ruling" in 1995.
The former event involved Iceland's economy as a whole becoming more integrated in the European network of economies, and the latter event allowed Iceland's soccer economy to become more integrated in Europe's soccer networks.
After making that initial argument, McGinn analyzes Iceland's success at developing soccer players eager and capable of playing abroad, the pros and cons of developing players eager and capable of playing abroad, and the overall soccer economy that has grown in the country since the 1990s.
Against the Elements: The Eruption of Icelandic Football (Matt McGinn)
Chapter 5: Iceland v. Nigeria
McGinn recounts his experience watching the Iceland v. Nigeria game in the 2018 World Cup, while sailing on an Icelandic fishing vessel for a 5-day trip in the North Atlantic.
Against the Elements: The Eruption of Icelandic Football (Matt McGinn)
Chapter 4: Grit and Sawdust
McGinn explores the Icelandic concepts of duglegur and thetta reddast and how those concepts are connected to grit and a growth mindset that often enables Icelandic soccer players and teams to punch above their weight on and off the soccer field.
Against the Elements: The Eruption of Icelandic Football (Matt McGinn)
Chapter 3: Facilities
McGinn opens the chapter in the Arctic Circle with the club FK Bodø/Glimt, one of the first clubs to build a full-sized indoor facility in 1991. That facility helped propel the club from Norway's third division to European competition in only a few years, and served as inspiration for Iceland's own construction spree years later.
As of 2018, Iceland's 23,000 registered players could play on 179 full-sized fields (i.e., grass, turf, indoors, and outdoors) and 154 small-sided fields built near schools and other public places. The national federation under the longtime leadership of Geir Thorsteinsson is credited with making these public-private investments an opportunity, and these numerous playing facilities are considered to be one of the 3-legged stools that have enabled Iceland to punch above its weight on and off the soccer field.
Against the Elements: The Eruption of Icelandic Football (Matt McGinn)
Chapter 2: From Gravel to Grass
McGinn recounts a cliff notes version of Iceland's soccer history than spans from 1899-2013:
Against the Elements: The Eruption of Icelandic Football (Matt McGinn)
Chapter 1: Iceland v. Argentina
McGinn documents the game day experience in Reykjavik, when Iceland took on Argentina in the 2018 men's World Cup hosted in Russia.
The game represented the World Cup debut for the country of 352,721 people, a remarkable achievement that's described by one of the chapter's characters as the most important event in the history of Iceland.
