GRETAR Steinsson reckons Iceland have not overachieved at Euro 2016… yet.

The former Wanderers full-back has dismissed the underdog tag given to Lars Lagerback’s team as they meet England in Nice tonight for a place in the quarter-finals.

Smallest nation in the tournament they may be but Steinsson believes Icelandic football has not been given the credit it deserves.

“People have overlooked the facts – we beat the Dutch twice in qualifying and got to the play-offs for the World Cup,” he told The Bolton News. “This improvement in Icelandic football hasn’t happened overnight.

“For 10, 15 years we have had excellent players coming through and playing in the Premier League, Spain, Germany and Italy and that doesn’t happen by accident.

“For example, people make fun of our assistant coach (Heimir Hallgrimsson) working as a dentist. But, to me, that means he is a highly-educated man, not just someone who knows football.

“Back home they would have been extremely disappointed if, with Austria and Hungary in the group, we did not qualify. We have not overachieved, yet.”

Steinsson concedes that a victory for Iceland would cause shockwaves. “England should win nine times out of 10,” he added.

But the 34-year-old, who now works as the technical director at Fleetwood Town, believes the standard of coaching has created a team ethos which will be difficult for England to break down.

“They might score early and win 5-0,” he said. “It won’t matter, the team will go home and maybe get a knighthood. But England might not score – and we always score. If it becomes a tight game, who knows?

“This team knows what to do. Our communication on the pitch is excellent and if it’s 0-0 or if we’re 1-0 up, each player knows their job. It has been drilled into them.

“This is what we do. You would struggle to find a club who are on message as well as Iceland.

“We have quality players but also that extreme mentality that you need to be successful.

“In English academies, maybe one per cent of the players go through and become a professional footballer? In Iceland we have 300,000 people and yet we export players all around Europe.

“Look beyond the players and there is top quality coaching, top quality sports science and physiotherapy. There are some things which can be improved, sure, but this is not an accident that the team has improved.”

Steinsson spent three-and-a-half years with Wanderers, playing 138 games, before moving to Turkish football in 2012.

He is still a regular visitor to the club, however, and believes the kinship he and other Icelanders have found in Bolton is down to some similar personality traits.

“It’s like brand loyalty,” he said. “You can put Icelandic players into the same bracket and you know what you will get.

“Sam Allardyce trusted players from Iceland because Gudni Bergssson had been a success. I nearly signed for the club a few years earlier, and he had other Icelanders.

“The community in Bolton works hard, they don’t do things by halves. And I think that is why we do well here.

“I think a similar thing happened at AZ Alkmaar in Holland when I played there – other Icelandic players followed because they knew what to expect.”