OK, let's see. So the following players didn't play overnight:
Sigurdsson (Everton)
Gudmondsson (Burnley)
Gunnarsson (now in Qatar, but 300+ appearances in the Championship and Premier League for Coventry and Cardiff City)
Finboggasson (Augsburg in the Bundesliga)
This is not to mention a bunch of other guys playing with other respectable clubs in decent leagues including Copenhagen, AIK, PAOK, and so on. So when you're comparing the clubs that the Icelandic players from last night played for, compare them with the clubs that the AWs who played against Lithuania play for. That's the relevant comparison.
Yeah that's not a bad list from a country with popn of greater Wellington thereabouts. But I still see them as a bit of a 'Moneyball' side. A team that is better than the sum of it's parts. Coached by a dentist from memory. But a bunch of guys who know each other well, coming through their acclaimed high quality coaching programme, and who have spent a lot of time together. Maybe I'm being simplistic.
But is real potential now for the same to happen over time with the AWs to an extent. You have a group of young guys now being signed by European clubs, almost entirely coming from 2 academy programs (Weenix & Ole). Some of those Ole guys (they can start young there) would have spent hundreds of hours training & playing together. Same with Cacace and Singh. I imagine Bell was also with Singh at Weenix. Then they all came together for the U20s and quite a long lead in program to that tourney, with U19s, camps in NZ (it was mostly a NZ based side at the time) etc.
This has never really happened with the AWs before. You are not only getting better technical footballers, but helped by NZ being small, and the top upcoming talent now really concentrated in 2 academy programs, in the future a core group of the side will know each other's games very very well. When they get together in a white shirt, it hopefully won't take long for them to gel. That's a big bonus, when with travel distances, the AWs commonly only have 2-3 days and a few training sessions together before they play.
The challenge in the near future is going to be getting that young brigade, in tune with likes of Barba, Rojas, Wood, Thomas, Reid, M Boxall etc. At the moment they are still basically strangers to each other.