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How did a nation of 330,000 people qualify for the Euro 2016 knockout stages? The secret behind the Iceland miracle

Their qualification for the last-16 is one of sport's great underdog stories but it is the result of a collective and youth-oriented football programme put in place 15 years ago

SPECIAL REPORT

I spent one frosty week last winter driving through Iceland. Though the landscape was snow-covered, along barren highways, one thing kept popping up: small pitches and training houses, even in the tiniest of towns.

And when you think of small towns, you have to reshape your scope to an Icelandic scale. In a country of roughly 330,000 people, a small town may consist of a few houses and one shop.