In the back of our minds, we all kind of knew it would end this way for Iceland. The England win was the climax, the summit. They weren't going to beat France. There was nowhere to go but down.
Which is fine, because they made it up pretty darn high. As much as we all made fun of England after they lost, that team has good players on it. Iceland stifled one of the two best players in the world and made one of Bayern Munich's wonderkinds look very extremely average.
Eventually, though, Iceland were going to run into one of the juggernauts, and it was not going to be pretty.
You know it isn't your day when Olivier Giroud buries his first chance.
Paul Pogba dabbed and Dimitri Payet did some cool stuff and Iceland fought hard but were simply outclassed and we knew all of this was going to happen because of course it was.
Gylfi Sigurdsson is good but he is not on the same level as Blaise Matuidi and Paul Pogba, and that's OK.
Iceland were 11 outclassed scrappers whose real challenge in this game was to keep it respectable, and they did, scoring the first two open-play goals France has allowed thus far at Euro 2016.
We're glad this Iceland team exists, and we're glad we got to watch their Euro 2016 run, and were glad we get to see Germany vs. France in the semifinals, because that game is going to be awesome.
Contact The18 Staff Writer Sam Klomhaus at Klomhaus@The18.com or follow him on Twitter @SamKlomhaus
