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 told to the viewer. could be classified as a “impossible constitution”however, Geraldine Carrasquerojournalist from ESPNdid a great job and pronounced the surnames without errors or obstacles.
Beyond this peculiarity, Iceland almost gave one of the blows of the group stage and was 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 he scored the solitary goal with which Belgium beat Italy and, after the final whistle, they had to wait for their place to be confirmed at the mercy of Iceland’s 1-1 draw against France, after playing 12 minutes of added time.
Iceland players cheer their supporters at Rotherham Stadium. Photo: EFE/EPA/Tim Keeton.
For Iceland, it was the fourth participation in a European Championship, having taken part in Finland 2009, Sweden 2013 and Netherlands 2017. They only progressed beyond the group stage in 2013 , when after a win, a draw and a loss, they accepted to the quarter-final final, where they eventually lost to Sweden 4-0.
The closest and most reminiscent antecedent of Iceland in football is the Men’s World Cup Russia 2018. On this occasion, the Argentine national team, led by Jorge Sampaoli, shared a group with the northern European country which had its first participation in a World Cup. In fact, the first game was between them and the 1-1 draw was a pleasant surprise for the football world.
In the quarter-finals of this European Women’s Championship, they will play England-Spain (Wednesday), Germany-Austria (Thursday), Sweden-Belgium (Friday and France-Netherlandsreigning continental champion (Saturday).
The celebration of the Belgian players in Manchester, after reaching the ranking. Photo: EFE/EPA/ANDREW YATES
The origin of surnames.
The pronunciation of surnames was also a source of conflict for journalists and commentators, but in 2018, when Argentina were framed on their World Cup debut in Russia, the magnifying glass was put on why all surnames end with -son (in case of being male) and -dóttir (in case of being female).
The reason for this is that surnames are of patronymic origin, that is, they are created from the name of the father. Thus, the ending -son refers to “son of” and the ending -dóttir to “daughter of”.
An example of each gender could be: Gylfi Sigurdsson (son of Sigurds) and Sara Gunnarsdóttir (daughter of Gunnars).