Matt McGinn traces the development of the team and the football culture which transfixed the continent of Europe with their performances at Euro 2016 in France. Iceland with a population of around 350,000 people living on a volcanic outcrop possibly with one of the most inhospitable climates to the playing of the beautiful game not only reached a major championships for the first time but showed their European counterparts and later the world at the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, that it could more than hold it’s own against sides like a Modric led Croatia or a Messi charged assault for Argentina. Though McGinn seeks to direct our attention to the less well-known aspects of the history and the development of the game of this country that sits on the edge of the Artic circle. The author undertakes his study in the form of a travelogue combined with a thematic investigation of not only Iceland’s football culture but also to examine its wider Nordic culture and society. Supported by the use of 50 exclusive interviews McGinn looks at the key moments from those European and World Cup tournaments; exploring subjects such as the ‘Viking’ mentality, the advantages of smallness and whether the experiment in Iceland can be replicated further afield.