Iceland v Croatia: Eidur Gudjohnsen wants small to be successful for Iceland in World Cup play-off

Lars Lagerback has turned Iceland’s fortunes around since taking over two years ago

Jack Pitt-Brooke
Thursday 14 November 2013 20:07 GMT
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Eidur Gudjohnsen
Eidur Gudjohnsen

Even in the unlikely event that a football genie came to Eidur Gudjohnsen before Friday’s match offering him World Cup qualification for Iceland in exchange for all his many club medals and trophies, he would turn him down.

“I would say that I’d take my chances and win the play-off fairly and squarely,” Gudjohnsen says, relaxed and focused ahead of one of the biggest matches of his long career. He has won the lot at club level, but the World Cup is different. Beating Croatia over two legs – starting in Reykjavik tonight – would send Iceland there for the first time.

For Gudjohnsen, it would be the perfect peak to a career that has already enjoyed more success than most. “I am very proud of what I have achieved in my career, and have had some amazing moments,” he explains, “so let’s just be confident enough to say ‘let’s add the World Cup’ to a list of honours that I am very proud of. It is always a different feeling playing for your country.”

It is from those honours – two Premier Leagues and a League Cup at Chelsea, a treble of league, cup and Champions League at Barcelona, with the Uefa Super Cup too – that Gudjohnsen draws some of his strength. Of course he knows all about big games – probably more than anyone else on the pitch tonight – but there is still, at the age of 35, a novel feel for him this time, one that sustains him nearly 20 years into his career.

“It is difficult to describe. It will probably be like playing a cup final, or a game to win the Premier League because it is such an amazing achievement for us. Whether I will be as nervous – I don’t know, I am older and experienced now – it is more excitement than anything else. It is more like, ‘this is why I am still doing it, for games like this’.”

This is the moment Iceland has always dreamed of. They have never even reached a play-off before and, should they win, would be the smallest ever country to qualify for a World Cup. Icelandic footballers have had to resign themselves to watching tournaments on television. So did Gudjohnsen ever think he would get this close?

“In all honesty, no. When you are young and ignorant you say ‘I’ll change that, I will be the one that takes Iceland to the World Cup and blah blah blah’. Then as years go on you become more realistic and you come to think that it might never happen.”

“I think now is the closest that we’ve been, not only in my international career but in Iceland’s history. It is still a distant dream but it is not so distant anymore. It is becoming closer and could obviously become reality.”

It is not much of a surprise to hear that Iceland is near a state of shutdown in preparation for this. Ever since their 1-1 draw with Norway in Oslo sealed the play-off spot, nothing else has mattered. “It is unusual, one of the biggest events in Iceland’s sporting history,” Gudjohnsen says. “We had a handball team in the Olympic finals in 2008 and it was similar.

“People have been counting down to this game since the Norway game, it has been like counting down to Christmas. It is really exciting time. We have a stadium that takes 10,000 people and we have had over 30,000 people trying to get a ticket for the game, which is 10 per cent of the population. How many people live in England? Imagine six million trying to get a ticket for one single game!”

Defeat would obviously hurt but there is much to be proud of in Iceland’s recent record in getting this far by finishing ahead of Slovenia and Norway in Group E. “It is the first time that we have made it this far. The feeling is that we have already achieved something spectacular for the size of our country. We have raised eyebrows, we have made people aware of Iceland and people are taking notice.”

The improvement has been clear since Lars Lagerback took over two years ago. Gudjohnsen describes it as an “amazing transition”, owing both to the new coach and Iceland’s “golden generation” of Gylfi Sigurdsson, Kolbeinn Sigthorsson, Johann Gudmundsson and Alfred Finnbogason, who reached the 2011 European Under-21 Championship together. They are all at least 10 years younger than Gudjohnsen but closer to his level than those who went before. “We have found a great mixture of youth, talent, experience and having the natural strength that we have always had,” he says.

The potency of that combination, and the potential for something special, was first clear in a qualifier in Berne in September. Iceland were 3-1 down to Switzerland at half-time and Lagerback threw on Gudjohnsen. Soon it was 4-1, before the old master started to turn the game.

“I just tried to say to the boys round me ‘listen, we’ve got nothing to lose, let’s just go for it, let’s try to save some pride out of this game, just go for a goal and see where it takes us.’ Within a short space of time we were keeping the ball very well, we got a second goal and a third goal, and all of a sudden we had the belief we could get something. And in the 90th minute we got the equaliser.”

Now playing for Club Brugge in Belgium, this must have felt very far away for Gudjohnsen when, two years ago, he suffered a double leg break playing for AEK Athens against Olympiakos. “Not many people believed that I would come back from that. And now, to be on the verge of reaching the World Cup, is something I am proud to have gotten through.”

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