Reykjavík Grapevine - 02.08.2019, Síða 10

As the 2019-20 pre-season intensi-
fies, the fate of our bold and mighty
smiters comes into clearer focus.
Of course, their hearts are set on
one goal alone: Iceland winning
Euro 2020. But in the meantime, a
Viking has to earn a crust. Here’s
the latest news, sent to us by raven
from our extensive network of wily
footballing spies.
Birkir’s gallop of terror
Birkir “Horror Hooves” Bjarnason
is one of the essential cogs of the
Icelandic men’s national team. He’s
a relentlessly marauding midfield
attacker whose galloping hooves
gnash up the turf—and the feet
of any defender dumb enough not
to dive for cover as he rampages
u p f i e l d . T h i s
cool-eyed Viking
plies his day-
to-day trade at
West Midlands
club Aston Villa,
where he has been
something of a
marginal figure in recent seasons,
to the degree where rumours of his
exit have begun.
However, on Aston Villa’s recent
pre-season tour, he was given a
chance to show off his devastating
offensive potential, heading home
in the 86th minute and joining Jack
Grealish and Henri Lansbury on the
scoresheet. Birkir’s future, however,
is far from clear; he didn’t make the
matchday squad a
week later against
Charlton Athletic
and, with a week
left in the transfer
window, he could
still be tölting to
pastures new come
the start of the season.
Berg besmirched
The second Icelandic star in the
Premier League is Jóhann “The
Berginator” Guðmundsson, famed
for his dazzling right-wing runs
and searing crosses, which have
been compared by poets to majestic
sight of a comet raking across the
night sky. Only a fool would dare to
denigrate The Berg’s silky attacking
skills. But, as has recently become
crystal clear in various major West-
ern democracies, the world has no
shortage of fools.
One of them is a Twitter user
named @_bernardooooo, who made
the sporting news by using the Tier-
maker website to generate a rating
system for Premier League midfield-
ers, ranking them from “World
Class” to “Cannot Play Football.”
His first mistake was placing Liver-
pool stars Salah and Sane at the top,
and not the twinkle-toed shaman of
world football, Gylfi Sigurðsson. His
second was placing The Berg in the
bottom bracket. But such smack-talk
will only help Jóhann, whose play
relies on the element of surprise.
As has often been said of his foot-
balling ambushes: like the Titanic,
they won’t see this Berg coming.
The kraken awakens
29-year-old striker Kolbeinn
Sigþórsson is a legend of Icelandic
football. English people may fear
his face as they do that of the grim
reaper; for it was indeed Kolbeinn
who scored that fateful goal at Euro
2016 that knocked them out of the
tournament, ending the careers
of manager Woy Hodgson and
overrated bald millionaire Wayne
Rooney in the process.
Since that mighty feat, however,
he has endured a torrid time. Having
damaged the meniscus in his knee
in late 2016, he missed 128 games,
making just four club-level appear-
ances over the next two years. Eager
to rebuild his career upon his return
to fitness, he took a loan spell from
Nantes to Ajax in 2018, but it lasted
only a couple of months. In March
2019, things looked up when he
signed a two season contract with
Swedish side AIK, and he will now
fight for his place in their starting
eleven.
Think of Kolbeinn as the kraken
of strikers. He floats beneath the
surface, watching and waiting,
until the time has come to strike.
And when he does, much like that
tentacled monstrous leviathan, he
will tear apart the Swedish league
like it was naught but the scrolls of
a feeble Irish monk.
Follow our live-tweets on Euro
qualification matchdays on Twit-
ter at @rvkgrapevine. Iceland's
march to the Euro 2020 trophy
will continue throughout 2019.
VONARSTRÆTI 3
101 REYKJAVÍK
IDNORVK.IS
MATHÚS, VIÐBURÐIR, SKAPANDI VINNURÝMI
RESTAURANT, EVENTS, CREATIVE WORKSPACES
@IDNORVK
THE WATERSIDE TERRACE
AT IÐNÓ. ‘FOOD AND DRINKS
WITH A SPLASH OF SUNSHINE’
#IcelandSmites 10 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 13— 2019
There Is A Smite
That Never Goes Out
Icelandic footballers poised to dominate
the 2019-20 season all across Europe
Words: John Rogers
Illustration: Lóa Hlín Hjálmtýsdóttir
THE REAL THING
Cool
Runnings In
The Europa
League

As Iceland’s domestic Pepsi League
chugs along in a state of relative
stasis, the top four teams of last
year have begun their qualifying
campaigns for two European com-
petitions.
As last year’s winners, Valur had
the chance to qualify for the high-
est tier of European football—The
Champions League. Their path to
the finals began with a two-leg tie
against Slovenian side Maribor. The
away game ended in a 3-0 drubbing,
setting up Valur for a heroic come-
back in the home game. However,
they entirely failed to pull a Cool
Runnings, and slumped to a 0-2
defeat, exiting the competition no
sooner than they had arrived.
This embarrassingly meek dou-
ble-defeat wasn’t the end of their
European hopes—they now get to
slum it in the second tier of Euro-
pean football along with the Pepsi
League 2018-19 runners-up Stjar-
nan, Breiðablik and KR.
The Europa League qualification
battle is not going well for the Ice-
landic teams either. League leaders
KR were trounced 7-1 by Norwegian
hardly-a-superclub Molde, with the
home leg ending in a 0-0 draw to
seal their fate. Breiðablik were tak-
en down 2-1 over two legs by Swiss
nobodies FC Vaduz. Stjarnan were
smashed 4-0 by Espanyol.
So it’s down to Valur to save
Iceland’s blushes with their sec-
ond swing at Europe. Their first leg
game against Bulgarian minnows
PFC Ludogorets Razgrad ended 1-1,
and by the time you read this, the
away game will be over and we’ll
know if Iceland’s top four had their
clocks cleaned in Europe without
notching up a win between them—
or if Valur managed to become the
Jamaican bobsled team of Europe
after all. JR
“Birkir could
be tölting to
pastures new.”
FOOTBALL