Marked for Balthasar A. Eck
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad29 Mar 2027
A fracture rules Balthasar A. Eck out for 14 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason IA will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Words exchanged at IA
Fernando Chávez and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad29 Mar 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Ómar Björn Stefánsson commits to IA for another 4 years.
Transfer targets29 Mar 2027
IA asked and Sparta Prague said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Transfer targets29 Mar 2027
Legia have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Transfer targets29 Mar 2027
A loan enquiry to Malmo FF: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Squad29 Mar 2027
5 new faces, and IA are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
Nobody at IA will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Market29 Mar 2027
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. IA know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad22 Mar 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 22 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The dugout22 Mar 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Transfer targets22 Mar 2027
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Malmo FF is saying, and nobody at IA is enjoying the guessing.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Words exchanged at IA
Guðmundur Þórarinsson and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Transfer targets22 Mar 2027
IA asked and AGF said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The dugout22 Mar 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Jón Gísli Eyland, and the manager let it.
Loan watch22 Mar 2027
“I did not go to Leiknir to sit and watch. I want to come back to IA and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 5 matches say the rest.
Transfer targets22 Mar 2027
A loan enquiry to Sparta Prague: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
The dugout22 Mar 2027
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Árni Salvar Heimisson is on it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
The dugout7 Dec 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” IA may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Tempers go at IA
Guðmundur Þórarinsson was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad7 Dec 2026
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Markús Páll Ellertsson has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Steinar Þorsteinsson has moved up it.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market5 Oct 2026
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around IA they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Erik Tobias Sandberg has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words exchanged at IA
Guðmundur Þórarinsson and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Market5 Oct 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at IA, another week without a signature from Guðmundur Þórarinsson.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Four or five weekends of consistency, measured against everybody else in the division. A quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Baldvin Þór Berndsen has moved up it.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Johannes Björn Vall has written the date down.