Preview: France vs Iceland

Iceland’s coaches, Lars Lagerback and Heimir Hallgrimsson, stated that they want a fairy tale ending to their run like the one that Leicester city enjoyed when they stunned the world by clinching the premier league title.

In fact, Iceland have already showed that they are a challenging team after advancing through the group stage and beating England 2-1 to set up a qualifying encounter against the hosts.

"I think I would like it to end like it ended with Leicester City," Iceland joint coach Heimir Hallgrimsson told reporters. "They played on their strengths and we are trying to play on our strengths. There is the same team spirit in both teams. We are willing to work for each other."

With Iceland playing without pressure, they can surely enjoy the game and do their best to get a good result. Like it happened in the England game, Iceland are expected to try to defend and catch the French on the counter. However, both coaches acknowledged that the French team is better, and argued that they should remain focused throughout the whole match since France score many of their goals at the end of the match.

The same cannot be said about the hosts. Nothing more than a victory will be a disaster for France, but they have already shown that they can recover from a setback. In their previous match in the round of 16, they were 1-0 down against Ireland, but a brace from Griezmann changed the outcome of the match for France and secured a place in the quarter finals.

Didier Deschamps already stated that the French will not be under estimating Iceland. He claimed that they deserved to beat England due to the quality of their play. The French coach also made a reference to how dangerous Iceland can be from set pieces.

Iceland’s coaches will have their full squad available for selection. On the other hand, Deschamps will be without Adil Rami and Ngolo Kante who are suspended.

History clearly favours France since these two teams played against each other eleven times. France won eight matches, while three ended in a draw. This puts the French as clear favourites for the match; however, it will not be as easy as it seems.

The referee of this match will be Bjorn Kuipers from Netherlands.