Gallant Iceland headed home heartbroken but unbowed after a premature end to their first World Cup adventure, ruing what might have been after a narrow defeat by Croatia. Iceland caught the public imagination with their fairytale run to the quarter-finals at Euro 2016 in France and waltzed through qualifying for Russia, topping their group, which included Croatia. At the World Cup, they held their own in a section that also featured Argentina and Nigeria but were left to regret a string of near misses in their final match before Ivan Perisic sealed their fate with a last-minute winner on Tuesday.
“It’s sad to go out after that performance. We had more inside us and thought we would go further in the tournament,” said Sverrir Ingason.
“That was our best game of the World Cup, we had many chances to score,” added the defender, whose second-half header hit the crossbar.