The success culture of Nordic football: the cases of the national men’s teams of Norway in the 1990s and Iceland in the 2010s

Abstract

Every now and then – but with surprising regularity – small nations break through to the international level in sports and attract the attention of the global sports world. This paper focuses on two such occasions in men’s international football: the Norwegian national team in the 1990s and Iceland’s national team in the 2010s. We conducted case studies of the two teams, which consisted of interviews, observation of games and published material. The key emerging themes were how sport successes in Norway and Iceland took place amid the developing professionalism of sport, and how both teams built on important elements from amateurism and professionalism in their successful sporting conquests. We argue that some of the team’s characteristics were founded in a specifically Nordic mentality, which at the right time with the right message manifests in great achievements. Finally, the study follows the decay of the Norwegian national team in the new millennium and suggests that Icelandic football could face the same decline in results as Norway did 20 years earlier.