Halldorsson had told his coach the night before facing Argentina at the 2018 World Cup that he would dive right to a Messi penaltyWhen he was 20, Hannes Thor Halldorsson was done with football. He had spent a season warming the bench for a club in Iceland’s fourth tier, where “warming the bench” is a relative term. The crowd, which usually numbered 20, had swelled to 2,000. But Hannes made a disastrous mistake: a scuffed goal kick dribbled to the feet of an opposing striker, who scored the dream-killing goal. The first time he ever saw himself on television was when he turned on the news that evening.

Source: The Times September 03, 2020 11:03 UTC