Iceland’s “impossible line-up” was not enough: Belgium retains the last ticket for the quarter-finals of the women’s European Championship

The formations of the Icelandic national teams of any sport always generate a phonetic difficulty for those who speak Spanish. Repeated consonants in surnames have an added degree of difficulty when it comes to being said to the viewer. could be classified as a “training impossible”however, Geraldine Carrasquerojournalist of ESPNhe did a great job and pronounced surnames without errors or obstacles.

Beyond this peculiarity, Iceland were close to giving one of the hits of the group stage and were only one point away from qualifying for the quarter-finals of the Women’s European Championship. The Nordic team shared with France, Belgium and Italy, and after three draws they were in third place, one point behind the Belgians.

This Monday, the midfielder Tine de Caigny scored the lone goal with which Belgium beat Italy and, after the final whistle, had to wait for confirmation of his place at the mercy of Iceland’s 1-1 against France, after playing 12 minutes of injury time .

For Iceland it was the fourth participation in a European Championship, since they had been in Finland 2009, Sweden 2013 and Holland 2017. They had only passed the group stage in 2013, when after a win, a draw and a defeat they agreed to the quarter-finals, where they ultimately lost to Sweden 4-0.

The closest antecedent and reminiscent of Iceland at a football level dates back to the men’s World Cup Russia 2018. On that occasion the Argentine national team, led by giorgio sampaoli, shared a group with the northern European country which had its first participation in a World Cup. Indeed, the opening match faced them and the 1-1 draw was a pleasant surprise for the world of football.

In the quarter-finals of this women’s European Championship they will play England-Spain (Wednesday), Germany-Austria (Thursday), Sweden-Belgium (Friday and France-Hollandreigning continental champion (Saturday).

The origin of the surnames.

The pronunciation of surnames has also been a source of conflict for journalists and commentators, but in 2018, when Argentina was framed in that World Cup debut in Russia, the magnifying glass was put on to find out why all surnames end. with -son (in case of man) and -dóttir (in case of woman).

The reason is that the surnames are of patronymic origin, that is, they are made using the father’s name. Hence, the ending -son refers to “son of” and the ending -dóttir to “daughter of”.

An example of any kind could be: Gylfi Sigurdsson (son of Sigurds) and Sara Gunnarsdóttir (daughter of Gunnars).