Iceland Qualifies for World Cup

Iceland won one of the most remarkable achievements in its sports history on October 9 2017 when its national soccer team qualified for the World Cup finals in Russia in the summer of 2018. Iceland secured its place in the finals for the first time by winning against Kosovo 2:0. A nation‘s dream came true when „our boys“ qualified for the World Cup finals. Iceland with its 346.000 inhabitants becomes the smallest nation ever to participate in the World Cup. The World Cup finals start in Russia on June 14 and conclude with the final match on July 15 on the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow. There will be 32 teams competing in Russia, playing in eight rounds with four teams in each round. The 64 matches will be played in twelve stadiums in eleven cities with three to four matches a day.

The British newspaper The Guardian has published its list of power rankings of teams participating in the World Cup. Iceland is number twelve on this list, ahead of nations like England and Colombia. The particularity of this stamp lies in the fact that all the members of the Icelandic national football team participated in its design during their training camp in Qatar on the Persian Gulf. It was rather an unusual task for them, as each player of the team was asked to trace a purposely made image onto transparent paper. The designer then scanned all the different sketches and set them together to form the illustration featured on the stamp, a witness to the strength of the Icelandic national football team. We do not known of any other national football team having previously illustrated stamps.