Marked for Pablo Ramirez
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings31 May 2027
Successful dribbles: 44. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market31 May 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad31 May 2027
Emil Atlason in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Stjarnan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 May 2027
Birnir Snær Ingason 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.
Squad31 May 2027
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Squad31 May 2027
Örvar Eggertsson has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Stjarnan 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings10 May 2027
Successful dribbles: 48. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad10 May 2027
Emil Atlason 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.
Squad10 May 2027
Words at Stjarnan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Birnir Snær Ingason 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.
Squad10 May 2027
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Stjarnan know it.
Squad10 May 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Sigurður Gunnar Jónsson and Stjarnan agree another 4 years.
Player ratings10 May 2027
Marked 7.14 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Stjarnan had the best player on the pitch.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings3 May 2027
Successful dribbles: 45. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match1 May 2027
Cruel end for KR as Stjarnan pounce
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Stjarnan scored in the 90th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Squad3 May 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.
Market3 May 2027
“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 Stjarnan, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad3 May 2027
Emil Atlason in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Stjarnan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom3 May 2027
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Stjarnan
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Squad3 May 2027
Örvar Eggertsson 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.
The terraces3 May 2027
The crowd has taken to Luka Smyth
At 23 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.
Market3 May 2027
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Mikael Skulason has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad22 Mar 2027
Emil Atlason 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.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Words at Stjarnan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Örvar Eggertsson 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.
Squad22 Mar 2027
The manager makes an example of Pablo Ramirez
“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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad22 Feb 2027
The words a physio says slowly. 33 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
The terraces22 Feb 2027
Supporters turn on the $240.0K sale of Jón Hrafn Barkarson
He is going to Breidablik, the club has $240.0K it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Squad22 Feb 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Stjarnan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market15 Feb 2027
$320.0K. Fees like that buy a footballer and rent a debate: every touch will be measured against the number for a season at least.
Squad15 Feb 2027
41 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Stjarnan lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market15 Feb 2027
Fylkir come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Stjarnan did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Emil Atlason in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Stjarnan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces15 Feb 2027
Stjarnan spend $320.0K on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $320.0K for Aron Snær Friðriksson, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Panagiotis Tzimas 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad1 Feb 2027
The words a physio says slowly. 56 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Match1 Feb 2027
Stjarnan are in among the leaders
Position 1 and 17 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Pablo Ramirez 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad18 Jan 2027
71 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Stjarnan lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Emil Atlason in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Stjarnan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad18 Jan 2027
“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; Stjarnan are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad4 Jan 2027
85 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Stjarnan lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match4 Jan 2027
Stjarnan refuse to drop out of the race
Position 1, 17 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Squad4 Jan 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Stjarnan may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Dec 2026
The words a physio says slowly. 100 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Emil Atlason in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Stjarnan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Dec 2026
16 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad14 Dec 2026
The words a physio says slowly. 107 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Match10 Dec 2026
A European lesson for Stjarnan
1‑3 against Banik Ostrava. Continental football is unforgiving about the things a domestic league lets a side get away with, and this was a night spent finding out which of those the club still has.
Match10 Dec 2026
The wait goes on for Stjarnan
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad14 Dec 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Stjarnan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at Stjarnan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emil Atlason 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.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Pablo Ramirez dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad30 Nov 2026
49 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Stjarnan lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match26 Nov 2026
Stjarnan come up short in Europe
2‑3 away to the standard of Universitatea Craiova. Nobody will pretend this was a scandal; the gap is real, it is measurable, and closing it is a project rather than a team talk.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.33 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Emil Atlason 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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad30 Nov 2026
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Pablo Ramirez will call it something else in private.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad23 Nov 2026
56 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Stjarnan lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad23 Nov 2026
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Stjarnan have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad23 Nov 2026
“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; Stjarnan are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad2 Nov 2026
79 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Stjarnan lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad2 Nov 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Stjarnan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad2 Nov 2026
A move Abdulla Al-Hosani would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Abdulla Al-Hosani is living that version at Stjarnan, and it tends to show in the first month.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
They will talk about this season in this town for a long time. The trophy comes home with the squad, and the route is already agreed.
Squad5 Oct 2026
109 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Stjarnan lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match1 Oct 2026
A European night to remember for Stjarnan
1‑0 against Banik Ostrava, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.83 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Emil Atlason 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Pablo Ramirez and Stjarnan agree another 2 years.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Stjarnan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Panagiotis Tzimas 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.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market5 Oct 2026
The clock runs on Pablo Ramirez's contract
24 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 44. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match19 Sep 2026
The wait goes on for Cortulua
7 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Nicolas Montero 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.
Match19 Sep 2026
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Match19 Sep 2026
The goal that put Deportivo Cali ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when Cortulua equalised, 2 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
Squad21 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Javier Mejia
“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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Fabian Barrios and Cortulua agree another 3 years.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Duvan Valencia has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Cortulua 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.
Market21 Sep 2026
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Luis Restrepo signs something — a contract at Cortulua or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match17 Sep 2026
A European lesson for Stjarnan
0‑1 against Universitatea Craiova. Continental football is unforgiving about the things a domestic league lets a side get away with, and this was a night spent finding out which of those the club still has.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 26. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Stjarnan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emil Atlason 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Stjarnan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Árni Snær Ólafsson, and the manager let it.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Marked 8.16. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Stjarnan.
Squad21 Sep 2026
The team sheet said everything about Panagiotis Tzimas
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Panagiotis Tzimas.
Match19 Sep 2026
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Market21 Sep 2026
The Emil Atlason story refuses to die
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Emil Atlason signs something — a contract at Stjarnan or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 31. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market7 Sep 2026
Cortulua say no — this time
The offer from Napredak for Javier Mejia was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Match5 Sep 2026
5 matches without a win for Cortulua
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Cortulua are no longer polite ones.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Cortulua training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hector Valencia 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
17 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad7 Sep 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.