Reykjavík Grapevine - 31.07.2015, Side 22

22 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 11 — 2015
prepare for the next game—figuring
out our opponent. Then we set the
training up to focus on their weak-
nesses.”
Although he clearly lives and
breathes football, the Icelandic sea-
son is short, so Bjossi teaches during
the long winter. “It would be crazy
not to work on something else in
the winter here in Iceland,” he says.
“Even if we’re always thinking about
football, we also have to put food on
the table. But young Icelandic play-
ers can now train indoors all year.
They have football in their blood. We
are ambitious here in Iceland. We
take our football seriously.”
The Club Captain
Haukur Páll Sigurðsson, Valur’s club
captain, is one player who has seen
the evolution of Iceland’s training
facilities taking place. “I was prob-
ably around five years old when I
started playing and training regu-
larly,” he says. “We’d play outside in
the middle of the winter, in snow and
freezing conditions. It was hard. But
it’s getting better and better—players
train on astroturf in the winter now.”
Haukur contends that the im-
provement is visible in how many
Icelandic players are bought by over-
seas clubs. “We have players going
to Norway, Sweden or Denmark,”
he says. “And Holland, England,
Spain... all over the world, there are
Icelandic players now. They have a
great work ethic, and they want to do
well.”
Although the new indoor facili-
ties have benefits for year-round
training, league matches are usu-
ally played outdoors. Many Icelandic
football grounds are in coastal towns
very close to the sea, and even in the
summer, they are subject to high
winds, single-digit temperatures,
rain, sleet and snow—unusually dif-
ficult conditions, by any standard.
“You do have to keep the ball
down in Vestmannaeyjar and Kefla-
vík,” says Haukur. “And in Akranes,
the sea is just a few metres away.
It can be really windy here in our
ground, but this stand and the walls
around the pitch help. But if the ball
is in the air on a windy day, it can go
anywhere.”
Haukur recalls one particularly
difficult game in the 2014 season.
“We went to the Westman Islands,”
he recalls, “and the
game was postponed
because there was
water all over the
pitch. So we went
back five days later.
The wind was ridic-
ulous and the pitch
was the same. It was
really difficult to
play. The wind was going towards
one goal… so when the goalie was
playing against the wind, the ball
was very unpredictable. It could just
f ly into the top corner.” He smiles
grimly at the memory. “It wasn’t ide-
al.”
The Groundsman
Alexander Júlíusson is a local and
lifelong Valur supporter who works
for the club each summer as stadium
manager. He got the job two years
ago after four years as understudy,
and his responsibilities include
maintaining the playing surface in
the difficult conditions that Iceland
presents.
“We look after watering, painting
and remarking the pitch,” he says,
“maintenance of the goals, the sand-
ing, the seating, and pinning. That’s
when we use a machine to pin the
surface, and the grass lifts up, so the
roots of the grass gets more air.”
He explains that this has been a
good year for the pitch, especially
compared to a disastrous start to
2014. “The winter has been very hard
in the last two years,” he says. “Most
of the surface died here last spring. It
happened to stadiums all over Reyk-
javík—it was the first time in a very
long time that it happened. There
was a lot of snow, and the climate
was such that the snow melted and
then re-froze over and over again.
The grass died and rotted under the
ice. We reseeded the whole pitch and
put down mats, but it wasn’t ready in
time for the start of the season—we
had to play two or three games on as-
troturf.”
Alexander explains that the pitch
has a heating system
that melts the snow to
give the stadium team
an extra few weeks to
prepare each spring.
I wonder how it must
be looking after the
more remote play-
ing surfaces, such as
the iconic Westman
Islands pitch (as seen on our cov-
er) which is surrounded by craggy
mountains, raging sea and unforgiv-
ing winds.
“The Westman Islands actually
are probably helped by the weather,”
muses Alexander. “There’s sea spray
and constant wind, so the snow
doesn’t stay as long—they never have
a situation with the grass dying like
we did last spring. It’s on a volca-
no, of course, the whole island—so
there’s heat in the ground, also.”
The Hopeful
No stranger to playing in the snow
is Kolbeinn Theodórsson, a promis-
ing 14-year-old player who trains
with Víkingur, a club in Rekyjavík's
eastern suburbs. “We practice five to
seven days a week,” he says. “Mostly
on astroturf, but in winter we train
on heated ground, so the snow melts.
When the weather is too bad, we
cancel a practice, but that’s rare—we
just play in the cold and the wind and
snow.”
The harsh conditions offers chal-
lenges for young Icelandic players.
“When it's windy, you can try to head
the ball, but you don't really know
where it will end up,” says Kolbeinn.
“It’s best to begin with the wind be-
hind the team, and press the game to
score some goals—then in the second
half you hold the score. I’m a centre-
back, so that’s my job. We stop the
attacks and build the play from the
back.”
Kolbeinn says that many people
his age play for the fun of it, but those
who take it more seriously get extra
training sessions, and have high am-
bitions. But while Kolbeinn takes in-
spiration in form of current Icelandic
internationals like Gylfi Sigurðsson
and Kolbeinn Sigþórsson, he has his
feet on the ground.
“I would love to be a professional,
of course,” Kolbeinn says. “I think
about it a lot. The dream would be to
play on the international stage with
a good team in England or Spain. But
I’m going to stay in school and take
it as it comes. It’s just one thing that
could happen.”
The Fan
Bordering Víkingur are Fram, a
Reykjavík club that started in the
early 1900s. After a prolific period
during the 1980s, Fram’s fortunes
have dipped dramatically in recent
times. Loji Höskuldsson is a musi-
cian and a long-time Fram supporter.
“When they’re in school, kids
learn to play with the team that is
in their home neighbourhood,” says
Loji. “So, I played with Fram’s youth
team when I was a kid, through until
my late teens. But Fram’s neighbour-
hood is very small. It’s an area near
the Kringlan mall, and it’s kind of
hemmed in by Valur and Víkingur,
like a little island. There are just a
few streets there, and they have an
ageing population. There aren’t that
many teenagers left, so youth re-
cruitment is down.”
Fram’s ground is Laugardalsvöl-
lur, the biggest stadium in Iceland.
While that might sound like a good
thing, filling it is actually just anoth-
er challenge for fans of the club.
“Compared to purpose-built club
grounds, it can be difficult to get a
good atmosphere going there,” says
Loji. “There might be 900 people at
a game, but when we’re all spread
out in a huge stand built for 15,000,
it feels like we’re just 70 or 80. It’s
“Young Icelandic
players have football
in their blood. We
are ambitious here in
Iceland. We take our
football seriously.”
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