Atlantica - 01.09.2000, Page 54

52 A T L A N T I C A
Standing in a garage packing for a trip to his parents’ summer house, Eidur
Smári doesn’t look like a professional footballer. Dressed in a worn sweat-
shirt, grey pants, and an old pair of black clogs with more than a few holes in
them, he seems more like a Saturday afternoon couch potato procrastinating over
the weekly chores than a man who just signed a multi-million dollar contract to
play for Chelsea of the English Premier League.
What gives him away, though, is the confident grin and the athletic build: thick
across the shoulders and chest and legs, lean through the waist.
“Football is my life,” Eidur Smári says, as his two-year-old son kicks a ball
against the side of the house and his girlfriend loads the car with food and camp-
ing gear. “Of course I have my family, but I don’t know what I’d do without foot-
ball.”
BORN TO PLAY
He was a football prodigy. Having spent his formidable years in Belgium with his
footballer father who played with Lokeren before moving to Anderlecht, it was as
if Eidur Smári was destined for the pitch. “When I was younger I always had a ball
with me; I kicked a ball around everyday. I grew up in a football family.”
Eidur Smári had his coming out party at the tender age of 15, when he made
his professional debut with Valur, a first-division club from Reykjavík. At 16 he
was snatched up by PSV Eindhoven and played alongside football phenom
Ronaldo. A year later he made his first full international cap when, with Iceland
ahead of Estonia 3–0, he trotted on to the pitch, substituting for his famous father.
“That’s a moment we both treasure. It was a historic moment, but if we would’ve
played together it would’ve been even bigger,” he says with a modicum of sor-
row.
After this rapid rise, Eidur Smári’s football future seemed secure. Then it
happened. Playing for Iceland’s under-18 side against Ireland, Eidur was tackled
viciously and suffered a severe ankle injury. After five surgeries, a PSV doctor told
him that he’d never play professionally again.
“I heard him say it, but I didn’t hear it. I blocked it out for about ten minutes. I
never really believed it myself. I told the coaches (after about a year of rehab) that
I couldn’t see myself being injured in another year.”
How right he was. Eidur returned to Iceland for some positive reinforcement,
saying that “team doctors gave up on him”, and quickly regained his form. In
1998 he went to Bolton, a first division English club that was looking for cheap tal-
ent, and last season scored 22 goals, nearly leading the Wanderers to promotion.
This break-out season proved not only that Eidur Smári was healthy but that he
was Premier League material. His performance on the pitch was so impressive
that a journalist with the Times wrote that “in the opinion of many objective
observers [Eidur Smári] is one of the most remarkable talents the English game
has seen for many years”.
FOOTBALL PRODIGY
"Football
is my life.
Of course
I have my
family, but
I don t
know what
I d do
without
football."
,
,
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