On Friday 13 October 2023, Luxembourg's men's football team, the Red Lions, played their latest EURO2024 qualification game away to Iceland.
At the Laugardalsvöllur stadium in Reykjavik, Luxembourg played their seventh out of ten qualifying matches in Group J, having won three and drawn one to date.
The match started with both teams playing attacking football, with strong tackles from both teams. The match was less than a quarter the way through when the referee -
Sebastian Gishamer from Austria - made his first booking of the game, with Luxembourg's Enes Mahmutovic receiving a yellow card. Shortly afterwards, Luxembourg had a free kick in Iceland's half, following which the home team scored courtesy of a shop from Orri Óskarsson.
Iceland were 1-0 up on 22 minutes. The rest of the first half continued in the same vein, with the referee stopping play for fouls committed by both teams. Just before half-time, he reached into his pocket again, for a second yellow card against a Luxembourgish player, Alessio Curci. Just one minute of time added on. HT 1-0 to Iceland.
At the start of the second half, Luxembourg made a double substitution, with Gerson Rodrigues (attacking midfielder) and Laurent Jans (defender) replacing Alessio Curci and Eldin Dzogovic. Almost immediately, Gerson Rodrigues scored Luxembourg's equalizer, with an assist by Leandro Barreiro. 1-1.
With half an hour left, Luxembourg made their third substitution of the game, with Mathias Olesen (midfielder) replacing Vincent Thill. A couple of minutes later, Christopher Martins was the fourth Luxembourg player to be yellow-carded, with Iceland's Sverrir Ingason following shortly afterwards. With 20 minutes left to play, Iceland made a triple substitution to try and prise apart the Luxembourg defence. With 15 minutes to go, Iceland's Kolbeinn Finnsson also found his name entering the referee's book for a yellow card, with Luxembourg's Maxime Chanot following a few minutes later.
With five minutes left to go, both teams made a last substitution, with Luxembourg's Olivier Thill coming on for Mica Pinto. Iceland were pressing for a goal to win the game, but the Luxembourg defence held solid. Luxembourg's goalkeeper, Anthony Moris, became his team's sixth player to be yellow-carded in the game for time-wasting as the referee played an additional three minutes of time added on.
While Iceland has 54% of possession, the home team had twice the number of attacks to Luxembourg (49 to 21).
With Portugal defeating Slovakia 3-2 in Porto, and Bosnia and Herzegovina winning 2-0 away to Liechtenstein, Luxembourg closed the gap to second placed Slovakie by a point. Luxembourg's remaining games are at home to Slovakia on Monday (which would be the crunch tie of the group), at home to Bosnia and Herzegovina on 16 November and away to Liechtenstein on 19 November.
Luxembourg: Anthony Moris (GK); Dirk Carlson; Enes Mahmutovic; Maxime Chanot; Mica Pinto; Danel Sinani; Christopher Martins; Leandro Barreiro; Eldin Dzogovic; Vincent Thill; Alessio Curci.
