IT was a question that was strategically placed at the end of our convivial chat. You know, in the same way your 17-year-old oh so subtly follows up a left-field natter to you about his fascination with your stamp collection or the values of your Status Quo fixation before pitching a finance proposal for a fortnight in Magaluf.

Geir Thorsteinsson still saw it coming with all the awareness and foresight of Lionel Messi latching on to a pass that had not yet left his team-mate's boot. The president of KSI, the Football Association of Iceland, had spent the previous wee while regaling me with stories and philosophies on how this remote country starved of sunlight and people – a population of just over 323,000 gets around four hours of that big yellow thing today – still managed to shine on the European stage in the summer.

His tale meanders from the early days of the mid 90s, the implementation of ‘football houses’, through to the creation of a player pathway from the age of just six all the way on to the chemistry that captivated a continent at Euro 2016.

As a poor hack of a certain age who was in short trousers the last time our own team managed to do likewise – the Kirin Cup doesnae count – it was soon time to pop the question: If you can do it then why can’t Scotland?

“It’s very sensitive for me to comment on the Scottish performance,” laughed Thorsteinsson, batting away my question like Babe Ruth slugging another home run into row Z. “I just think if you look towards Iceland you see what is possible. There are a lot of things. You can have great work, you have to have good players, but you must have an understanding between players and a friendship to make an excellent team.

“This will always be very important in football, no matter where you are. If there is a friendship there, a team spirit is there and if you have the skills to do it, well it changed so much for us. In the generations before we didn’t have a group like this. We had [Eidur] Gudjohnsen but he was a little bit alone.

“If you have such a group you must work hard on it and you must sacrifice some things for it.”

It is easy for those within our wee country to look to near neighbours for inspiration through frustration. Wales, Northern Ireland and even the Republic of Ireland all managed to make it to France in the summer while the rest of us lathered on the midge repellent with gay abandon. For all their successes, it is the emergence of the Icemen that should really stick in the craw.

They may have nicked their fan clappy thing from Motherwell – a brief Europa League encounter between the 'Well and Stjarnan was where it all began – but the ability to call on many players plying their trade in some of Europe’s unglamorous leagues and get them to make it all the way out of their Euro group, beating England in the process, is a feat all of their own. For Thorsteinsson, it was an achievement over 20 years in the making.

“I think there has been a lot of work,” he explained. “I started here in the beginning of 93, became general secretary in 97 then president 10 years later. It has been our dream that one day we’d reach a finals tournament but we needed to change many things along the way.

“We made the strategy to build football houses around Iceland. That was important. It took place in the 90s and the first was opened in 2000. Since we have seven full-sized houses and some smaller. In the 90s we also built a lot of artificial pitches in Iceland because before that we only had grass for three or four months. Outside that we were on gravel which was impossible. To move inside made it possible to have proper technical training for the whole year.

“We have also demanded from our clubs that we have adequate coaches from the very beginning. When the kids come into our clubs from the age of six they will get proper training. We have improved our facilities and the coaching of our talents.

“It came as a surprise we reached the play-offs for the World Cup in Brazil so I knew we had a good group of players. But after that the Euros was not a surprise, I thought we could make it. I was quite optimistic I must say.

“Football is more important now than it was before.”

The more Thorsteinsson spoke, the more it became abundantly clear. Iceland have kept things simple.

While Scotland remains in a state of crisis as the hunt for a third Scottish Football Association Performance Director drifts towards its fifth month, we appear no further forward in finding a magic formula to cure the headache caused by a World Cup 2018 qualifying campaign that threatens to be over before it starts.

Radical reform at youth level and the scrapping of club academies in favour of more centralised set-ups has been suggested. Both in a bid to cut down on wastage but also to take away the element of self-interest from clubs looking after their own future assets rather than cultivating stars for a national team. And who can blame them?

Still, the message from Thorsteinsson remains the same. Open up better coaching and facilities to everyone at a younger age and let them flourish.

“In Iceland the set-up is the same all over the country,” he explained. “All of our football is done by our clubs who are fielding teams in our leagues, but still they are doing their own youth work. They are all striving on the same thing. The whole emphasis is on youth work.

“The clubs have bought into what we are doing. This is how it has been structured from the very beginning in Iceland. We didn’t need to change that, what we needed to do was have better facilities and more education. These were the two things we could improve.”

It is also clear that Iceland is a country with a plan, and one that was in place when their path crossed with Scotland six years ago, during the early stages of its magic. Both countries met in the U21 Euro play-off round, a two-legged affair that saw the Scots go out 4-2 on aggregate with Jamie Murphy and Chris Maguire getting a goal each.

More importantly, it was a meeting that Iceland took far more seriously.

“I remember something that maybe you can compare," says the KSI president. "When we went for the 2011 U21 finals we met Scotland in the play-offs and we won. It was strange as we took the best players that were just starting to play for the A team to meet Scotland because it was for the development of the youth and the progress was more important to be able to play in the u21 finals than get some points for the A team at that time because we were not going anywhere with that team.”

Five of the group that got the better of Scotland then beat England in France during the summer.

So, can we learn from you? Please?

“Our doors are always open to our Scottish friends. Alan [McRae, SFA President] is a good friend of mine and we’ve known each other for a long time back. Also Campbell [Ogilvie] we worked together for many years.

“Our doors are always open to them, that’s for sure.”

That will be of some consolation as the Icemen continue to cometh.