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This is Rebecca Loew or Rebecca Loewa if you listen to Suboptimal Radio and you are listening to Men in Blazers on the NBC Sports Network.

Welcome to a Men in Blazers pod special, an international special with one of the men who has invested his life's work

into revolutionising football in his home nation of Iceland, transforming it into the world's smallest footballing mini-power.

Just 325,000 people live scattered across this active volcanic island stranded in the ice-cold waters of the North Atlantic,

a number which makes the entire country about as large as Corpus Christi Texas or 1175th as Biggest England.

The nation is just over 21,000 registered soccer players. The state of Rhode Island has more.

As a result, Iceland's long been a world footballing backwater, a logistical inconvenience for the big European teams,

but a guaranteed three points in a place so remote, Game of Thrones producers chose it to film scenes involving the wildings beyond the war.

Yet, over the past five years, the national team struck an ear at Okka.

He's laughing.

Our boys has soared from 131 in the world in 2012 behind such minnowes as Luxembourg, Togo and Lichtenstein,

to climbing as high as 23rd, a feat which many have claimed make it pound for pound the greatest football team in the world.

Last summer, a golden generation of young Icelandic footballers charmed the world at Euro 2016, battling all comers amidst delirious scenes, humiliating England and leaving with their Viking Thunder claps still resounding,

head held high, and for me, the moral victors of the first tournament they'd ever competed in after 23 failed qualifying attempts.

Simply put, their Euro 16 was an epic saga which made us all feel alive and reminded me of everything that's good about football.

Living in America, as I do, a prosperous nation of 320 million, which has always struggled to develop a reliable pipeline of elite footballers,

I've found the transformation of Icelandic football to be a fascinating story.

And after making a film about their rise last summer for vice sports, I'm thrilled that their manager,

Hemeer Harmegresson, as Jeremy here, and the crap part of so how to talk about his team, his career and the secrets of a 20-year investment in youth development that's hard-wired the nation for success.

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