Abstract
ABSTRACT Icelandic football has recently attracted widespread international attention. Iceland – with a population of 340.000 – is by far the smallest nation to have qualified for major international men's and women's football championships such as the European Championship Finals and the men's World Cup. In this paper, I argue that Iceland can be identified as ‘a Black Swan’ (something which is highly improbable and unexpected but carries extreme impact) in modern elite sports. Firstly, because it has produced extraordinary results against prestigious football nations. Secondly, because Iceland’s recent success is produced from a ‘none-elite’ sport system, which is built on different ideologies than is customary in the conventional youth sport academies of most nations. And thirdly, because Iceland’s recent success has highlighted weaknesses in the customary international sports model, which larger football nations are currently trying to restore more in line with the Icelandic way of organizing and playing sports.
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