“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at IA, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
The deal with Fjolnir is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
This is not rotation. Árni Salvar Heimisson has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at IA is pretending otherwise.
Squad26 Mar 2029
Mateo Kesikj falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
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 Viktor Jónsson is on it.
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.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Markús Páll Ellertsson was one of the reasons people came, and $220.0K does not replace that by itself.
Viktor Jónsson 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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Daniel Isichei has, at IA, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jón Gísli Eyland is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“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 Arnór Valur Ágústsson.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around IA people have started saying his name in the past tense.
IA and Fjolnir have settled on $62.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at IA, and it is not being withdrawn.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jón Gísli Eyland was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at IA, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around IA people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what IA can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at IA is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Nenad Nikić 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mateo Kesikj is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at IA, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IA this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jón Gísli Eyland was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Ómar Björn Stefánsson may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Steinar Þorsteinsson signs something — a contract at IA or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The message was aimed at the stands as much as the dressing room: Ómar Björn Stefánsson plays, and the argument is closed until the manager decides otherwise.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. IA have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at IA, and it is not being withdrawn.
Nenad Nikić 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.
This is not rotation. Steinar Þorsteinsson has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at IA is pretending otherwise.
Squad12 Feb 2029
Mateo Kesikj falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. IA told Balthasar A. Eck something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Markús Páll Ellertsson trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at IA is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IA this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mateo Kesikj was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Haukur Andri Haraldsson will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around IA the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
Everybody at IA saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 34 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Arnór Valur Ágústsson signs something — a contract at IA or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at IA is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 15 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IA this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
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 Viktor Jónsson is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ermal Ymeri trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at IA is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IA this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
This is not rotation. Balthasar A. Eck has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at IA is pretending otherwise.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Mateo Kesikj falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against IBV in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Ermal Ymeri’s exile
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Viktor Jónsson provided it, and the 8.54 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. IA have lost him in all but the paperwork.
At 38 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.95 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Rafael Máni Þrastarson will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around IA the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IA this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 36 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
The 86th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Daði Berg Jónsson decided nobody was going anywhere. Fjolnir had no time left to answer.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at IA, and it is not being withdrawn.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Árni Marinó Einarsson: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Viktor Jónsson 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.
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at IA, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at IA can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IA this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
This is not rotation. Balthasar A. Eck has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at IA is pretending otherwise.
The dugout19 Jun 2028
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Gylfi Arnason to a room that had heard them before.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mateo Kesikj is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
In brief
Looking aheadIA take on the side everybody is chasing
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Viktor Jónsson 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.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jón Gísli Eyland is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
7.88, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. IA had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
The dugout22 May 2028
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Gylfi Arnason kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.09, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jón Gísli Eyland was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 17 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The deal with Stjarnan is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.09, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mateo Kesikj was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at IA, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what IA can pretend not to have heard.
A season average of 7.09 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. IA know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IA this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. IA told Ómar Björn Stefánsson something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
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 Viktor Jónsson is on it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what IA can pretend not to have heard.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jón Gísli Eyland is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
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 Marinó Einarsson is on it.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.09, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IA this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Arnór Valur Ágústsson trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
“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 Daníel Michal Grzegorzsson.
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Ísak Máni Guðjónsson may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
The message was aimed at the stands as much as the dressing room: Ísak Máni Guðjónsson plays, and the argument is closed until the manager decides otherwise.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and IA have had the benefit of it.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.09, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jón Gísli Eyland is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
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.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.09, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
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.
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 Viktor Jónsson is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ómar Björn Stefánsson trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at IA has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Ómar Björn Stefánsson provided it, and the 8.51 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
At 33 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 8.33, and nobody on the pitch better.
Player ratings12 Jul 2027
Balthasar A. Eck, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.61
A mark of 7.61 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Ómar Björn Stefánsson has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Half the programme played, position 9, 10 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
A mark of 7.76 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at IA is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; IA are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Viktor Jónsson 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.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.