Picture, if you can, Bill Belichick publicly discussing his game plan and opening wide his strategy to patrons in Brendan Behan’s pub in Boston each week the New England Patriots play a game?

Imagine a team whose coach is occasionally called away to tend to patients as a part-time dentist?

Far fetched?

Probably not as much of a leap as the team Heimir Hallgrimsson coaches, Iceland, playing Argentina in an opening-round World Cup Group “D” match Saturday.

After all, history tells us the Argentines win — and host — World Cups.

And the Icelanders, 200-to-1 shots to win the Cup, are delirious just to be in one — their inaugural, as it turns out.

So, with the U.S., not to mention World Cup bluebloods Italy and the Netherlands, forced to sit this one out, if you find yourself casting about for a side to root for in this quadrennial battle for world futbol supremacy unfolding in Russia, consider making it Iceland.

To be sure, the team known as “Strakamir Okkar” (“Our Boys”) back home on what is usually the real frozen tundra, can use the support. There is still plenty of room on the bandwagon of the smallest nation in terms of population ever to make the World Cup. No small feat when you consider the country has only 334,000 residents, about a third of that of Oahu.

Weigh cheering for the Icelanders as a form of solidarity between inhabitants of volcanic islands, however distant.

Of course, their island shivers under freezing temperatures the majority of the year, which can mean mostly snow-covered, ice-encrusted pitches. And a lot of players with beards.

But in soccer, as in many things, the Icelanders are nothing if not resourceful and focused. Which is why they have also constructed more than 100 scaled-down indoor pitches, complete with subterranean heating systems, in recent years. Along with raising the temperature, it has allowed them to hike the level of their game from a 112th world ranking just eight years ago to No. 22 today and claim some notable victories of late.

The question of how to stop Argentina’s Lionel Messi, perhaps the best player in the world, on Saturday is left to Hallgrimsson. Had this been a home game, he would lay out the team’s strategy to pub-goers in a favored Reykjavik watering hole, as is said to be his custom of some years standing — emergency tooth extractions not withstanding.

The team’s goalkeeper, Hannes Hallorsson, when otherwise employed, is a film director.

And players join in with their horned-hat-wearing faithful in celebrating with the trademark thunderclap, a rhythmic, sideways Florida Gator-like hand chomp with Viking overtones.

But for all their quaintness, opponents look past the Icelanders at their own peril, as England discovered to its humiliation in the 2016 UEFA Euro competition. Playing in its first major tournament, Iceland won a 2-1 stunner to reach the quarterfinals in Loyola of Chicago-like fashion before succumbing to host France.

For a glimpse of what that meant to Iceland, check out YouTube for the Coca-Cola commercial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdS6lVtzZdw) the milestone victory inspired.

For Iceland, no longer is soccer success like, well, pulling teeth.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.