England have nothing to fear against Iceland, except fear itself

When Arnor Traustason scored in the last-second against Austria and lifted Iceland into second place in Group F, England fans punched the air.

Yes! We don’t have to play Portugal!

Portugal, England’s post-millennial nemesis – destroyers on penalties of Euro 2004 and World Cup 2006 dreams.

Portugal, a nightmare to play against, with Carvalho and Pepe on the wind-up and the ever-present threat of Cristiano Ronaldo doing something heartbreakingly brilliant.

And instead we get to play Iceland!...

...

…Oh no, this could be so much worse.

England no longer genuinely target tournament wins – based on recent tournaments a more realistic aim is simply to avoid embarrassment.

It looked like Roy Hodgson’s side had achieved that in negotiating – albeit unimpressively – their Group. And now this. Losing to Portugal would at least have had the consolation of performing very much to par – but Iceland?

A meeting with the tournament’s ultimate underdogs – a country with a population the size of Budleigh Salterton and more active volcanoes than people, where children are named after their father’s pet bear, of whatever the internet’s increasingly outlandish Did You Know? facts claim. (My favourite real one – more people shop at Iceland than live in Iceland.)

Never really accustomed to neutral support, England will find the continent – in fact, the world – praying for them to slip up in the most humiliating fashion.

There is a strong argument that losing to Iceland shouldn’t be embarrassing – they knocked out the Netherlands en route to the finals, where they are unbeaten, but should England lose none of that will matter.

We will hear only about how you can fit everyone in Reykjavik inside a mini, how all 330,000 people have to share a single five-a-side pitch, and how Wayne Rooney earns Iceland’s entire GDP every fortnight.

Think complacency is a risk? No chance. Fear is England’s real enemy. Fear of becoming the latest group scorned and ridiculed at home, Photoshopped on to the back page of The Sun with a harpoon through their belly.

And yet Iceland really should be ideal opponents for an England side that, under Hodgson, have been ruthlessly effective at winning the games they ought to win. Yes, they struggled in the group – but before that the flawless 10 wins out of 10 in qualifying showed their ability to get the job done against teams slightly less good than themselves.

England struggle to raise their game in competitive matches against opponents of real quality – but they seldom fail to get the job done in matches like this. There are times when it is good to be a flat-track bully. Peter Crouch had the term thrown derogatorily at him – but he ended with 22 England goals in 42 matches, including a vital one against Trinidad and Tobago in 2006, perhaps the closest modern-day comparison to today’s match.

Roy Hodgson’s bold selection policy appears set to continue with the restoration of Raheem Sterling; the man whose performances so far inspired a petition to bring him home; whose surname will spawn a trillion Brexit jokes should England fail.

Sterling will play ahead of the busy yet curiously ineffective Adam Lallana, alongside Harry Kane and Jamie Vardy in a front three. Hodgson has yet to find a way to arrange his forwards such that somebody doesn’t end up shunted wide, but Kane-Vardy seems a much more natural combination than the Sturridge-Vardy pairing that started against Slovakia.

The coach’s chopping and changing speaks to a man – despite that 100% qualifying record – still unsure of how to extract the best from his players, but it also shows his willingness to adapt. The four-striker extravaganza against Wales looked a crazy gamble, but it was what the situation called for and it worked. You wouldn’t do it against Germany, but England weren’t playing Germany and Hodgson was vindicated.

If England can forget the consequences of failure, what lies ahead is a winnable match against hugely committed but limited opposition.

The only thing they have to fear is fear itself.