Iceland Becomes Tiniest Nation to Qualify for a World Cup

For some countries, making all the way to a World Cup final is a generational thing.

However, when a nation only has a population equal to, say, the City of Anaheim, from which to draw world-class football talent, it's a once-in-a-lifetime thing, if that.

Specifically, that's 335,000 descendants of Vikings, who -- as opposed to Anaheim -- likely only tolerate tough mice.

With only a handful of players rostered on top-tier clubs in major conferences, this crew the locals like to call strákarnir okkar -- our boys -- became a top story of the 2016 European Cup.

Now, they've got a shot at doing it again, this timeon a world stage, by blanking Kosovo, 2-0, and finishing atop UEFA's Group I:

Clearly, Croatia is the stunned club here, and they'll now have to battle it out with seven others in the runner-up playoffs.

As for the match that put the pins in their quest, Iceland fans packed the cozy Laugardalsvöllur -- it only seats 9800 -- in the nation's capital, Reykjavík (translation: Bay of Smokes).

With the taildragging Dardanët -- Dardanians -- being the only obstacle between Iceland and football history, the atmosphere was electric.

OK, maybe they left their axes home, but Everton midfielder Gylfi Þór Sigurðsson brought his recently rediscovered attacking skills:

With that, five minutes prior to the intermission, the stadium believed their ticket to Russia had been punched.

Still, lapses and fluke goals happen all the time, so when Jóhann Berg Guðmundsson timed his run perfectly ten minutes from time, there was no doubt that Iceland had become the first nation with a population under one million to hit the world stage.

This means, of course, Iceland's now-famous Viking Thunderclap will also be front and center.

Russia's name originated from their word for the Swedish Vikings -- rus; rowing men -- who dominated their vast river systems.

An invasion by the ancestors of their cousins is now confirmed.

This time, though, there won't be any axes.