Iceland coach braced for Scottish backlash

The Iceland coach Atli Edvaldsson, who has selected six England-based players for his squad, believes Scotland's disastrous start to their Euro 2004 campaign was also bad news for him.

The Scots slumped to their lowest-ever Fifa ranking following last month's 2-2 draw in the Faroe Islands, and the failure of Berti Vogts' side to beat a nation of 45,000 people was hailed as Scotland's worst result. Now they travel to Iceland – population 270,000 – today for Saturday's qualifier in Reykjavik, with the hosts ahead in the rankings and regarded as favourites.

But Edvaldsson, whose brother Johannes is a former Celtic player, insisted the Faroes result could make his team's task harder. "The Scots will come over here to show that the Faroes game was an accident," he said. "Maybe this was the worst result for us. If the Scots had won by three or four or even five goals then maybe they might have come here over-relaxed."

Edvaldsson himself is under pressure to get the Iceland campaign off to a good start and this match will be their opener. While the Scots were toiling in Toftir, Iceland were losing a friendly to Hungary, a team below both of them in the rankings table. Another home match, with Lithuania, follows next Wednesday.

Edvaldsson added: "I have watched a tape of the Faroe Islands game and I know that Scotland have a lot of things they did not show in that game. They were two down in 12 minutes but they could have won the game in the end."

But Edvaldsson, who has decided against replacing injured Ipswich defender Hermann Hreidarsson, knows his own supporters and media still expect a home win on Saturday.

He said: "We are like the USA – when we play we always have to be world champions of something. And if we can't be that then we have to be the best if you look at population. We are in the highest position ever and when the draw was made we were in the 'C' group and Scotland in the 'B' group. It is the first time and nobody is happy! My view is when you get promoted to a higher division the first thing you do is make sure you stay there.

"But anything can happen in football and we are looking to get up to the 20s or 30s in the Fifa rankings. There are only 270,000 of us but we are always trying to be the best."

Though the experienced Hreidarsson will be missing, Edvaldsson can call on other defenders plying their trade in England, Larus Sigurdsson of West Brom and Ivar Ingimarsson, of Wolves. In midfield, Stoke's Brynjar Gunnarsson is up for selection, while up front, another Stoke player, Bjarni Gudjohnsen, is vying with Eidur Gudjohnsen of Chelsea and Heidar Helguson of Watford.

Despite Edvaldsson's pessimism, the Rangers defender Maurice Ross said he has already found out the hard way that there are no easy games for Scottish teams these days.

The 21-year-old Scot discovered this to his cost twice in the space of a few days while in action for both club and country. First, he was part of the Scotland team that had to come back from 2-0 down to scrape a draw in the Faroes last month. And then Rangers suffered an early Uefa Cup exit at the hands of the Czech unknowns Viktoria Zizkov.

Ross is hoping for better fortunes in Reykjavik, but he called upon the Scottish public to lower expectations he regards as unrealistic. "You never get an easy game, that's for sure," he said. "But the press seem to think we are still in the days of Kenny Dalglish – and we are not. They should be more realistic – the days of hammering teams by four or five goals are gone. Even Rangers are finding that out."

The Rangers manager, Alex McLeish, who faced Iceland twice as a player, concurred, saying: "If Scotland come away with a point or three points they will have achieved a lot."