In terms of population, Iceland are the minnows of Euro 2016. In football terms though, they punch well above their weight. It is this overachieving which makes them virtually everyone's second team for the tournament.
Still, when it comes to being competitive, going toe-to-toe is not a viable option. Battles must be chosen wisely. Given how often Cristiano Ronaldo has been the Goliath lording it over football's Davids, you would have thought this was something he would have learnt by now.
You would be wrong.
Realistically, this is Ronaldo's last chance to win a major international tournament.
If he and Portugal are going to do that, they really should be beating a country playing in their first European Championships and also one with a population of 350,000. That did not happen on Tuesday evening in Portugal's opening game of Euro 2016 against Iceland.
After taking a first half lead through Nani, Portugal were pegged back five minutes into the second half by Birkir Bjarnason.
After the final whistle, Ronaldo cut a frustrated figure, apparently choosing not to shake hands with any of the Icelandic players or acknowledge the Portuguese fans.
Time did not cool his bitterness regarding the result.
Quoted by Ed Malyon of Mirror Football, Ronaldo was critical of Iceland's clothcutting tactics.
It was a little bit frustrating, we tried hard to win the game, Iceland didn't try anything. They scored a goal, they created two chances in the ninety minutes and otherwise they got every player behind the ball, they put the bus in the net so it's difficult when one team don't try but Portugal try and play football and try to win the game.
He also felt little affinity with the intrigue of Iceland's football story.
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 are not going to do anything in the competition.
As Portugal sought three points tonight, nobody was attempting to force a goal harder than Cristiano Ronaldo. According to Opta, apart from himself four years ago against the Dutch, nobody has attempted more shots on goal during a European Championship game since 1980 than Ronaldo did this evening versus Iceland.
10 - Only @Cristiano v 🇳🇱 in 2012 (12) attempted more shots than... himself tonight v #ISL (10) in a EURO game since 1980. Burst.
— OptaJean (@OptaJean) June 14, 2016
Picture credit: David Maher / SPORTSFILE
