Kari Arnason will be Aberdeen’s sole representative at the World Cup finals next summer and the Iceland international insists his country is aiming to make an impression in Russia.
The Dons defender will be part of the first Iceland team to qualify for the finals and the stage is set for a memorable campaign following yesterday’s draw which saw Iceland join Argentina, Croatia and Nigeria in Group D.
Stopping arguably the world’s best player in Lionel Messi and his team-mates represents the most taxing of opening matches on June 16 in Moscow but Arnason insists his country is not going to Russia to make up the numbers.
He said: “It’s probably going to sink in now that we’re actually going to the World Cup.
“We go into every game believing that we can win.
“We know that we can go toe to toe with almost everyone. But against the top countries you know that they’re probably going to win the group. We’re always a massive underdog going into those games. Against the smaller teams there is a bigger chance of winning.”
Iceland, as the smallest nation taking part, will be the ultimate underdogs next summer but Arnason does not see why, after a successful European championship campaign in 2016, his country cannot compete with the bigger countries.
He said: “It’s harder to progress in the World Cup because there’s only two teams qualify from each group. You have to get in one of those two spots but going into it, we’re always confident.
“We got the group of death in the qualifiers with Croatia, Ukraine and Turkey. There’s no massive team there, but they’re all very capable and we knew it was going to come down to the last game of those qualifiers to see who would progress.
“We’re always confident and we believe 100 per cent that we can qualify from almost any group.”
The World Cup draw in Russia yesterday gave Arnason a welcome distraction from club duties following Aberdeen’s defeat to Rangers at Ibrox on Wednesday.
The two sides meet again at Pittodrie tomorrow and the Aberdeen defender is eager to make amends for the 3-0 loss in Glasgow.
He said: “I’m delighted that there is such a short space between the games. We have to bounce back, it’s as simple as that.
“The first half was a poor performance. We’ve had a few of them lately. We just need to right that wrong. It’s as simple as that.
“It didn’t help that we gave them an early lead through a penalty. I’m not blaming Greg Tansey in any way, but it was unfortunate and it could have been prevented.
“It got the crowd going and that’s exactly what they needed at that stage because they’d come into the game having had two bad losses. We just didn’t turn up for the first half.”