Culture
The Planning Lesson in Iceland’s World Cup Miracle
“It’s about making long-term commitments,” said an architect in Reykjavik’s planning department.
It still seems too good to be true. This Saturday, Iceland’s national soccer team will play its first ever World Cup match, having never qualified before in the country’s history.
It’s always a surprise when small countries make it through the grueling qualifying rounds of the global soccer championship—but Iceland is not a small country. It’s a tiny country, with 350,000 people, scarcely more than Peoria, Illinois. When it plays Argentina in Moscow this weekend, Iceland is taking on the team of a country whose citizens outnumber its own at a rate of 130 to one. For Iceland to enter the global superstar league—even if it’s just for one round—is like some rare, beautiful millennial comet, something that will go down in the country’s history.