27 June 2016, Nice. Iceland 2–1 England. By Hamish McTavish
You already know the score. What you might not have is the Monday itself — last sixteen on the Riviera, a June night England had already filed under quarter-final, and a country of three hundred and thirty thousand asked to turn up and be small.
The ones who had stayed on in France found a screen. The ones at home cleared the evening and rang the ones who had not. You do not need a ticket for this. You need a room and a country that has decided. England came into Nice as if the last sixteen were a courtesy extended to the group runners-up. They had scraped past Slovakia and called it a job done. Iceland had beaten Austria and called it a night. The English week still wrote the rest as weather and a song. Paris was already a plan. The song was already warming its throat.
Wayne Rooney, the eve, at the Stade de Nice, gave them the line they cannot take back.
"We know we are favourites to win this game. There's no denying that."
And: "I believe if we play the way we can and stick to the things we've worked on, we will win the game."
Bookies had Iceland at about 7/1. Someone in the week held the population of Iceland against Coventry and waited for the laugh. Rooney said that was "just a number." Eleven against eleven. He said it as if the census was the joke and the eleven were the answer.
Roy Hodgson, same week, looking at Lars Lagerbäck's lot: "He doesn't have the wealth of talent at his disposal that I believe I have as England manager." He wanted them ruthless. He wanted the chances taken. "If we don't win, that's the end for us."
He was not wrong about the last bit.
They kicked off anyway.
Four minutes in, a penalty, Rooney puts it away, and the English end does the thing of sitting back as if Paris were already printed. The song finds a verse. The diary finds a quarter-final. For eighty-four seconds they are the side they had described on Sunday — favourites, no denying it, the wealth of talent doing what the week had promised.
Then Aron Gunnarsson has the ball in his hands on the touchline. The long throw the week had mentioned. The one they had on tape. The one they had filed under something they would deal with when the real match started. He throws it. Ragnar Sigurdsson is on the end of it. One-one, and the verse has to start again before it had finished. Eighty-four seconds from a penalty to a throw they could not stop. That is not a collapse with a drumroll. That is a country being told, at speed, that the eve was a speech.
The ground has not settled when Kolbeinn Sigthorsson hits a shot so ordinary it should have come with a note. Joe Hart gets something to it. Something is not a save. The ball goes in and Nice changes temperature. That is the picture of the night — not a strike for the ages, not a deflection from on high, a daisy-cutter and an England goalkeeper helping it over the line as if he had been asked to hold a door.
Two-one Iceland. The rest of the first half is England remembering they were favourites and Iceland declining to be informed. Crosses come in. Headers go where Halldórsson is. The thunderclap from the red end does not pause for the census. Half-time the same score, and the rooms at home have already changed their plans for Tuesday. If you were in one of those rooms you will remember the noise more than the clock. If you were not, this is why the tape still does the rounds.
They had a second half to remember the wealth of talent.
Harry Kane at the headers that would have been goals in the column they wrote before kick-off. Dele Alli. Raheem Sterling. The expensive front, the things they had worked on, taking turns to find Hannes Halldórsson. He catches laundry. He tips. He stands where a goal was supposed to be. Hodgson sends on more of the talent. The talent runs into the same shirts. Gunnarsson keeps throwing it. An hour of a wealthy country trying to remember how a ball goes in, and a keeper from a country the size of Coventry treating the whole production as a night's work. The hour does not come back. It is the same attack, again, and the same red wall, again, and the same English look of a side that cannot believe the script has not arrived.
When the whistle goes Hodgson is already moving. Down the tunnel, resignation walking with him, no long night in front of the microphones if he can help it. English for we would like this to be over now. Four years, a last sixteen, and a walk that did not wait for the questions.
Ragnar Sigurdsson had been there for the throw and still won it. Kolbeinn Sigthorsson had a go, which is more than can be said for an hour of English shooting after it. Gunnarsson treated the touchline like a weapon they had been warned about and then applauded as rustic. Halldórsson spent the night making Kane look like a man who had been promised a different match. The Iceland support, louder than the population they had been handed as a punchline, did not need a second invitation. Hart will have that second goal until they stop showing it. Rooney will have the eve. Hodgson will have the tunnel.
They said favourites. They said there is no denying that. They said we will win the game. They said just a number. They said wealth of talent. They said if we don't win, that's the end. A country that writes the ending before kick-off will always have a sentence left over for the morning.
The film is up. The penalty, the throw, the Hart, the walk. Do not review it. Watch it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ju8pL1P9ww
They get surer. It gets worse. Next time a point at the new Wembley would do, and they pick a debut in the rain, and the manager brings a brolly. Last of the five. If you were not in the room for this one, this is the night they still put on. Come back for that one.