as well as La Liga, Copa del Rey and the UEFA Champions League title for FC Barcelona.
A majority of Icelandic clubs began to form at the end of the First World War and into the 1920s, including KR Reykjavik.
Indeed, a selection of fifteen Icelandic players (two of them will follow one another at the head of the Federation twenty years later) made the trips to the neighboring island, first confronting a local club.
Thoughts around the sport re-emerged in 1970, with consideration from KSÍ, the Football Association of Iceland, for it being public in the early half of the year.
[16] By the end of the year a friendly match would be organised between a selected XI from each of Reykjavík and Keflavík, with the capital team winning.
As of 2016, the country's population of about 330,000 was comparable to that of Corpus Christi, Texas,[19][20] and it had fewer registered football players (of both sexes) than the U.S. state of Rhode Island.
[21] Iceland, being a far northern country, also has to deal with average daily temperatures that stay around freezing for nearly half the year,[22] making it difficult or impossible for players to train year-round outdoors.
[21] Additionally, all of the football houses are publicly owned, making access easier and much less expensive than comparable facilities in many other countries.
[21] Many top clubs in the country have B-licensed and even A-licensed coaches overseeing children as young as age 6.
Following the affiliation of the Federation to FIFA in 1947 and UEFA in 1954, the selection was committed[clarification needed] for the first time in the qualifiers for the World Cup in 1957.
The team plays its home games at Laugardalsvöllur stadium (15,000 seats), built in 1958 and located in the capital, Reykjavik.
manager is Heimir Hallgrímsson, who served as co-manager alongside Swede Lars Lagerbäck before the latter departed following Euro 2016 and took the Norway position.
Iceland became the smallest nation by population ever to clinch a FIFA World Cup spot when they secured qualification for the 2018 tournament on 9 October 2017 by defeating Kosovo 2–0.