Iceland coach Arnar Vidarsson looks ahead to a busy June and building
a new team for an island nation that continues to punch above its weight
“My football
philosophy is more
Belgian than
Icelandic”
Being the coach of Iceland but
living in Belgium must make your
job particularly demanding?
I am about 50 per cent of the time in Iceland,
andtheother half ofthe time I work from
home in Belgium. But it’s actually a plus, in my
opinion, because we have had less travelling
with COVID in the past year and a half. To be
able to travel to Germany, the Netherlands,
Italy, England – wherever players are playing
to go and scout games – is actually easier
from Belgium. I get the best of both worlds.
I see a lot of games in Iceland during the
summertime. And then in the winter I can
see more games from our players live.
You recently had the chance to play Spain
in a friendly international – what were
you looking to get out of that game?
It’s important to play games against really
strong opponents. It’s easy to get games
against teams that are maybe ranked lower,
but it’s important for our players to get the
experience of playing against teams that play
at a top level, not only technically, but also
tempo wise. Last year, we played Germany
in our World Cup qualifying group and what
we learnt when you look at the numbers and
the data from the games, is that the tempo
they play at, both with the speed of the ball
and with the speed of their running, is just
phenomenal. And it’s important for our
players to play those games, at that tempo,
to get closer to that level – especially when
you have young players like we have now.So how disappointing was it then to go
down to Group B in the Nations League?
When we were playing in Nations League A
and we had the opportunity to play friendlies,
we chose to play against teams ranked below
us because we had all of those big games in
Nations League A. Now in Nations League B
we have two teams around the same level as
us in Albania and Israel. So that is also the
reason why we were looking, for example, for
that friendly against Spain, to mix it up and
get games against really, really strong teams.Were you pleased with the Nations
League draw? These days it seems more
important in terms of offering a backdoor
qualification for major tournaments...
Yes, but it’s becoming a tough competition on
its own. With the World Cup in November, the
FIFA dates have been changed a little bit. Forexample, we are looking at a FIFA window
inJune with four games, which is, of course,
thefirst time inhistorywhereyou havefour
qualification games in the same window.
And it’s almost as if you’re playing a final
tournament. You can actually compare it to
going to the Euros; going through the group
stage, playing three games and then having
one more match in the next round. It’s
actually a big challenge for a football
association like us to organise.
I’m not so worried about the players,
because I know the players are used to
playing a lot of games. For them that’s not
the challenge – the challenge is we’re going to
have a lot of travelling. And then you need to
have a federation and a staff around the team
that can have it properly organised, with all of
those kilometres to travel from game to game.How much does Iceland’s success at the
Euros in France in 2016 still resonate? Is
that legacy now almost like a burden?
I don’t see it as a burden. I think we have to
acknowledge and we have to be really, really
proud of what the team achieved. And you
have to, first of all, be realistic and know that
a team always has a beginning and an end.ARNAR VIDARSSON