Thursday 23 June 2016 16:43, UK
Manchester United fan Aron Gunnarsson cannot wait to line up against Wayne Rooney, Chris Smalling and Macus Rashford as Iceland's 'fairytale' continues.
Lars Lagerback's Iceland, who finished above Netherlands in qualifying, pipped Portugal to second place in Group F on Wednesday to set up a last 16 clash with Roy Hodgson's men.
Gunnarsson accepts that they have not been able to afford the luxury of rotating their squad in the style of Hodgson but is confident they will have recovered in time for the Nice showdown.
"It's going to be a good moment because I'm a Manchester United fan," Gunnarsson said.
"It is another fairytale but all the Icelandic people watch the Premier League and they follow English football. Everyone back home knows the England players, we know their style and hopefully we minimise their quality."
"England have been playing solid in this tournament and they've got unbelievable quality in the squad. They rotated a lot so it's going to be another fight.
"The rest is important for us because we've not rotated a lot and we've put the same players out there, especially with the hard defending as we've done lately. It's going to play a big part but the extra days are really important for us, yes."
Joint-coach Lagerback is a long-time friend of Hodgson, with the two men first meeting 40 years ago when the 68-year-old Englishman was embarking on his coaching career with Halmstads BK.
He is looking forward to renewing acquaintance with Hodgson on the Riviera, before dishing up one more surprise.
Lagerback said: "I regard him as a friend. I got to know him in '76. Roy is taking everything seriously. He is one of the better coaches I met and I have a lot of respect for him.
"But we have a realistic chance. We can put some questions to the English team, I don't know how good questions they will be. Iceland are always the underdogs. The first round of a competition is nice but this is a bit special.
"We played them (England) six times when I was coach of Sweden and never lost. We hope to keep that going. We have shown we are getting better and better every year, we are a team that is difficult to break down. Hopefully we can keep on going but we expect a really tough game."
