No limits in a bold new era

In Iceland, they’re suddenly attempting to play down expectations.

“We’re a small country, with just 320,000 inhabitants,” Cardiff City’s Aron Gunnarson recently explained. “We need to be realistic.”

The exact reality, however, is that a nation of that size currently sits in second place in Group E, having last month claimed a 4-4 draw away to leaders Switzerland. It’s quite a transformation, given that Iceland were ranked 131st in the world just over 16 months ago.

That remarkable rise reflects something of an increasing mobility in international football. Because, as the 2014 World Cup qualification campaign starts to properly close out this weekend, it’s worth considering how unexpectedly open it all is.

Iceland are directly competing with: Slovenia, who are themselves the smallest European country to have ever reached a World Cup; Norway, who are aiming for their first qualification in 14 years; and Albania, who are hoping for their first qualification ever.

Bosnia-Herzegovina find themselves in the same mindset as the Albanians, if not quite the same position given how they lead Group G, while Hungary are looking to end a generation of failure to make a first tournament since 1986.

In other words, there is a true sense of freshness and variety about this campaign. That is best represented by the Belgians, who are not just looking to end their own 12-year absence from the top level, but also to topple many of the teams that dominate. Like their play, it all feels so vibrant.

Even if many of the struggling major nations reassert their strength this week, the persistent feeling is international football no longer has any actual baseline quality. It has never been less fixed. There has never been so much fluidity to the ability of the countries.

Of course, the articles about how the international game has fallen behind the Champions League since 2000 have long been written. While the major tournaments used to be the barometer for the entire game, they are now just barometers for how far Uefa’s elite event is ahead of virtually everything else.

No individual nation can match the concentration of utter quality the modern super-clubs enjoy. It was something Jose Mourinho argued on Friday as he noted even Belgium’s reliance on players like Kevin De Bruyne. “Normally national teams don’t have as many options as big clubs have. If you go from team to national team, it looks like Brazil and Germany have dozens and dozens and dozens of good players. And all the other countries are struggling for quality players and their options are limited.”

The Spanish media that ultimately developed such a poor relationship with Mourinho might dispute that one too, but there is a legitimate point there.

If Euro 2004 set the template for how mid-tier teams like Greece could compensate for their flaws, and Euro 2008 illustrated how nations such as Spain had managed to distil all of their qualities, it was Euro 2012 that pointed to a more winding middle path between these two extremes.

After a decade of generally dull tournaments where only a few teams attempted something more expansive — of which the 2010 World Cup was a nadir — the greater attacking openness in Poland and Ukraine appeared to predict this current situation in the European qualifiers.

It was also something that perhaps only exaggerated the issues at the end of Giovanni Trapattoni’s era.

While Ireland were rigidly trying to stand their ground, the rest of Europe has been swirling about rather chaotically. The majority of team cycles don’t even last the traditional length of four years. Within two, status can drastically change. You only have to look at how Croatia have wavered between 2006 and now, going from contenders to failing to qualify for 2010.

Short-term alterations seem to have a disproportionately large effect.

Part of the issue is undeniably the utter lack of countries looking to the long term. If you survey the world game, Spain and Germany are the only two federations to have undertaken radical overhauls of their infrastructures in the last two decades, making it no coincidence they lead the way with football to rival the greatest club sides.

Holland have also kept steady while Belgium consulted such nations in altering their own coaching. Even some in Brussels, however, point to a certain amount of basic luck in gathering a generation as good as one that features Eden Hazard and Christian Benteke.

Harry Redknapp also offered a telling point amid the more self-serving revelations of his recent autobiography extracts.

“You’re watching a tournament thinking, ‘Hang on, he was at Blackburn — he was useless,’ or ‘That bloke couldn’t get in West Ham’s team’.”

The point here is not some reductive view that only success in the Premier League matters. It is so many countries reflect the staggered quality of international football as a whole. Qualifying nations are often very incomplete.

Ireland saw this first-hand in the last double-header. A player of Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s admitted quality combined for the win with Anders Svensson — a 37-year-old who has spent the last eight years back in Sweden.

On Friday, the Swedes’ own crunch fixture further illustrates the issue. Their patchwork side will meet one of these once-a-generation collections of young talent in Austria, to decide second place.

None of this is to give Ireland a pass for the failures in the country’s infrastructure. It is that, until the FAI make the changes that they must, relative success remains somewhat navigable with the right short-term changes.

It is no longer that international football is either good or bad. It is that, right up to the semi-finals of any tournament, you will see a lot of both. Beyond the very best, there is no longer a set standard. Expectations should be more fluid than ever.