Photo by Art Bicnick

“Iceland Is the same Size as Corpus Christi, Texas, or Anaheim, California. They can figure it out. If the United States can’t figure it out, then no business being involved. Because if Iceland … an area that small as Corpus Christi, Texas. I have to repeat this … if they can figure this out, how can the United States not figure this out? In your own region?”

https://youtu.be/tgFh729L2oA?t=6m34s

How can’t you indeed Americans?

The quote above is part of a rant by American football commentator Taylor Twellman following the US’s feeble loss to Trinidad and Tobago (sorry, not sorry Trinis for breaking your record for smallest nation to qualify for the World Cup). He rightly pointed out that you are 320 million, while we are just over 320 thousand, or one thousandth of your population. So, while we’ll be celebrating winning the World Cup next summer, you’ll be … doing what ever it is you do.

You know we at the Grapevine, as all Icelanders do, love to smite. But unlike the miners of West Virginia, who as Trump promised would win so much they’d get tired of winning, we don’t get tired of smiting. But we are also generous and we want to help you. We like you Americans, you’ve brought us so many great things, such as cheeseburgers, Ben Affleck, FDR and Cold War tensions. Therefore, we are going to offer you some well deserved help.

It’s football stupid

Part of the problem is that you call football “soccer”. When you hear “soccer” what do you hear? Well, you hear “sucker”. According to the Oxford English Dictionary a sucker is a “freshwater fish with thick lips that are used to suck up food from the bottom, native to North America and Asia.” It feeds on small worms, basically its a bottom feeder with big lips. Sort of like Coco Austin.

A sucker

The Icelandic national team, however, is more akin to the majestic saltwater fish steinbítur. A mighty predator, which, while not the prettiest, is effective at crushing crabs and other bottom feeders. You Anglophones are even so enthralled by it that you call it the Atlantic wolffish (see the difference?). Also, like the Icelandic people, there are not many of them and they contain natural anti-freeze, what do Americans contain? McDonalds? Hah! We don’t even have McDonalds!

Stefanía the steinbítur on a good day



Join us

So what can you do? And how can we help?

To tell the truth, nothing, you should just give up. Forget about your own team and support us. You even have an Icelander in your team, Aron Jóhannsson, who chose to play for the US instead of Iceland so he could play in the World Cup (the irony is palpable). We are a welcoming people and you, despite being somewhat loud, are pretty great. Therefore, we want to invite you to join operation #SmiteTheWorld and finally you might be able to do something powerful in Russia. You know, actually make Putin sad.

It may be hard for Americans to get an Icelandic work visa, but to get a visa to our hearts you only need two things: Being able to “húh!” on command and an insatiable love for smiting. Don’t be a sucker.

So stop being trite and start to smite. Clad yourself in our armour and join the smiting magic on Twitter.

ÁFRAM ÍSLAND!