It’s a fully-fledged member of the team
Iceland are a funny old team. They do a Viking clap after virtually every success they have, they are the smallest populated nation to reach a FIFA World Cup, and now they have a traffic cone as part of their team photo.
Why do they have a traffic cone in their official World Cup team photo? Good question.
When the team was flying out to compete in France at the 2016 European Championships, they did the customary pose in front of their team plane. However, the photographer seemed to forget about an errant traffic cone lurking suspiciously next to the stairs leading up to the plane.
In another age, in another world, this would have passed by without much notice. “Oh look, a traffic cone,” people might say. “How silly, now let’s get on with our lives,” someone might have followed up with.
But this is the 21st century and everything is weird and stupid and brilliant, so the traffic cone naturally became an internet celebrity.
It was placed in photographs using Photoshop, appearing on penalty spots and next to the team during line up photographs.
He has now graduated to the big leagues though after appearing – for real, not in Photoshop – next to the team as they departed for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia.
Whether the traffic cone boarded the plane with them is as yet unknown, but at least it made it this far.
