Iceland put Ronaldo and Portugal in their place to earn historic draw

Roberto Martinez feels Iceland can be quite proud of their complete performance against Portugal.

SAINT-ETIENNE, France -- It took 13 seconds for Aron Gunnarsson to make his presence felt, even in the long shadow of Cristiano Ronaldo. Iceland's bearded captain put perhaps the greatest footballer on Earth to the ground with a hard tackle. The game seemed to stop for a moment, while everyone waited for a whistle that didn't come. The referee waved play on. Gunnarsson did stop, though, to lean over Ronaldo, still lying on the ground. Whatever he said, it didn't look like an apology.

That tackle, a classic, fearsome reducer, set the tone for a sometimes crunching 1-1 draw. Portugal dominated possession and generated opportunity after opportunity, but Iceland's physicality proved the ultimate leveler. In the warm night after, the Iceland fans cheered and sang and hugged; the Portuguese sat in stunned silence.

Ronaldo was not especially gracious about the treatment after. "It was a lucky night for them," he said, and he practically sniffed with disdain when he said it. "I thought they'd won the Euros the way they celebrated at the end, it was unbelievable. When they don't try to play and just defend, defend, defend, this -- in my opinion -- shows a small mentality and they are not going to do anything in the competition."

But little Iceland did do something, didn't they? It wasn't lunacy to think they might earn something from Portugal. The island nation took down Turkey, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands, twice, during their qualification for Euro. They aren't here just because they're a great story, even though a country with only 330,000 citizens qualifying for Euro is a really great story. When told of Ronaldo's "small mentality" comment, Gylfi Sigurdsson smiled. "Well, we're a small nation, aren't we?"