Icelandic commentator, what a guy.pic.twitter.com/4qQCI5Jv3J
— Soccer St. (@SoccerSt_) June 27, 2016
The biggest star at this year’s UEFA European Championship has been Gareth Bale, who has been nothing short of brilliant for Wales the dude who does play-by-play for Iceland. While Iceland themselves have been special this summer – shockingly, they managed to make the quarterfinals of the tournament after downing England 2-1 on Monday – the announcer from the tiny island nation has been on another level.
We were first introduced to him last week, when he nearly ascended into Heaven after Arnór Ingvi Traustason scored a goal to give Iceland a win over Austria that propelled them into the knockout round. Today, Kolbeinn Sigthorsson buried a goal in the 18th minute to give Iceland a 2-1 lead that it would not relinquish.
As we’ve come to learn through our totally acceptable sample size of two incidents, when a goal happens, television people in Iceland go wild. After Sigthorsson’s goal, this dude’s voice cracks like he’s on a roller coaster that’s dropping straight into a pit of fire. One of the perks of international soccer is that most of the time, announcers with a rooting interest don’t even try to stay unbiased, and that gloriously happened here.
After the match, English manager Roy Hodgson stepped down after four years at the helm. A BBC Radio personality played the audio of the Icelandic announcer shortly after and remarked, “if our team played with that passion, we wouldn’t have a manager on the chopping block.”
Next up for Iceland is its biggest test yet: a match against France, the tournament’s host nation and the favorites to win the entire thing. If Iceland manages to win that one, we’ll have to check on the dude doing play by play, because there’s a non-zero chance that he’d ascend directly to Heaven.
