Lionel Messi can’t take ‘Icelandic madness’ with pinch of salt

To prepare for his job of keeping Lionel Messi quiet in Iceland’s opening game of the World Cup, defender Birkir Saevarsson worked as a salt-packer at a warehouse in an industrial zone of Reykjavik, the Icelandic capital. 

Not because the 33-year-old seasoned football pro needs the money, but because the monotony of factory work, the graft, the need to cover his neat hair with an unsightly net all helped keep him real.

“This is normal for an Icelander, you know? More normal than going to the World Cup,” Saevarsson said during a recent shift before he flew to Russia with the Iceland squad, talking as he fed jars into a machine that slapped them with labels marked: “Hand Harvested Lava Salt.”