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Eiður Guðjohnsen

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Eiður Guðjohnsen
Personal information
Full name Eiður Smári Guðjohnsen
Height 1.85 m (6 ft 1 in)
Position(s) Second Striker, Attacking Midfielder
Team information
Current team
 FC Barcelona
Number 7
‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of June 16, 2007

Eiður Smári Guðjohnsen (born September 15 1978 in Reykjavík), known in English as Eidur Gudjohnsen, is an Icelandic football player who is a striker with FC Barcelona, having signed for the Spanish club on June 14 2006. For the six previous years he had been a midfielder/striker with the English Premiership club Chelsea, having made his name with Bolton Wanderers in what is now the Football League Championship. He is the captain of the Iceland national team and is often referred to as the greatest Icelandic player who is currently still in the game. For Barcelona he wears the number 7 shirt and for Iceland number 9. So far in his professional football career, Guðjohnsen has scored 128 goals in all competitions. He is the son of Arnór Guðjohnsen, a former professional footballer.

Club career

Early career

On 24 April 1996, Guðjohnsen and his father entered football history in an Iceland international friendly against Estonia in Tallinn. Arnór started the match, and Guðjohnsen came on in the second half as a substitute for his father.

Both father and son have later expressed bitterness at the fact that they were not allowed to play together in the match. As it happened they never got another chance because a little while later Guðjohnsen broke his ankle, playing for the Icelandic youth team against Ireland. He had difficulty coming back because of undiagnosed tendinitis in that ankle. During his injury struggles, PSV released him. After a spell in Iceland with KR Reykjavík, he signed with Bolton Wanderers in 1998. He has later said that the help he got from former Iceland international, Guðni Bergsson was incredible.

Bolton Wanderers

Guðjohnsen was unveiled before the Bolton supporters prior to their pre-season friendly with Scottish giants Celtic in a game which was arranged as a testimonial for long serving defender Jimmy Phillips, now a first team coach at Bolton. Guðjohnsen had impressed on the clubs summer tour of Ireland and was given a contract by the then Bolton manager Colin Todd.

Overweight and unfit, it was going to take time for Guðjohnsen to return to the level he needed to be and a brief substitute appearance against Birmingham in September 1998 meant that the Icelander had taken a step further on the road to recovery.

By early 1999, Todd decided to put Guðjohnsen into the senior team full time to help freshen up a Bolton forward line which was decimated by the sale of Arnar Gunnlaugsson to Leicester City and Nathan Blake to Blackburn Rovers.

Guðjohnsen's return to the team saw him score in the 3-3 thriller against struggling Swindon Town at the County Ground and again in the next game against Barnsley at the Reebok Stadium and by the end of the season, he had scored five goals in all competitions.

He helped Bolton to the play off finals against Watford in 1999 and nearly scored at Wembley Stadium but was saved by Hornets veteran goalkeeper Alec Chamberlain. Bolton lost the game 2-0 with the two goals from Nick Wright and Allan Smart.

Starting in all but seven of Bolton's games in the 1999-2000 season, Guðjohnsen partnered a number of players in the Trotters forward line including Dean Holdsworth, Bo Hansen and Bob Taylor. He scored stunning strikes in the FA Cup quarter finals against Charlton Athletic and in the League Cup against Wimbledon which attracted the attention of Derby County amongst others.

He scored 21 goals in the English First Division 1999–2000 season for the Trotters and helping them to the semi-finals of both the FA Cup and League Cup.

New chairman Phil Gartside announced that it would take at least £10 million to prize Guðjohnsen away from Bolton.[citation needed] After helping the Wanderers to the League Cup and FA Cup Semi Finals, it was now his main aim to get the club into the Premiership.[citation needed] He was injured against Ipswich Town in the first leg of the Play Off Semi Finals and missed the controversial second leg which saw twelve Bolton players booked and Mike Whitlow and Robbie Elliott sent off by match official Barry Knight. Speculation increased about his future despite his willingness to stay with Bolton.

Chelsea

In the 2000 off season, during a period of financial troubles at Bolton, he was signed by Chelsea for a fee of £4 million by Gianluca Vialli. He formed a deadly partnership with Dutch striker Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink during the 2001–02 season, scoring 23 goals himself and helping Hasselbaink to a tally of 27.

Early in 2003, he admitted to a gambling problem, confessing to having lost £400,000 in casinos over a five-month period.[3]

His dribbling and close-control, combined with his deadly finishing, saw him score some remarkable goals during his time at Chelsea. His overhead kick against Leeds in the 2002–03 season for Chelsea is perhaps his finest strike to date. Other notable goals came against Fulham at Stamford Bridge in 2003–04, ranked ten in the 2004–05 Premier League Goals of the Season against Southampton in 2005, and his first ever professional hat-trick against Blackburn Rovers in October 2004. His touch and vision saw Chelsea manager José Mourinho deploy Guðjohnsen into a deeper midfield role, to which he took readily. He ended up as a utility player: he performed as a central-midfielder; as a right or left winger; as a holding-defensive midfielder or as a striker.

After the arrival of Roman Abramovich as the owner of Chelsea F.C. in 2003, and the subsequent influx of expensive and high-profile players including Adrian Mutu, Didier Drogba and Hernán Crespo, there was some opinion that he might not be able to secure a regular place in the team.[citation needed] Despite this, he played regularly throughout the 2003–04 and 2004–05 seasons, playing a significant role in the Premier League successes. Eidur had also scored in Chelsea 4-2 win over FC Barcelona.

With Chelsea making several big-name signings in the 2006 off-season, notably strikers Andriy Shevchenko and Salomon Kalou and midfielder Michael Ballack, there was growing speculation concerning Guðjohnsen's opportunities for playing time in the 2006-07 Premier League season and his future at Chelsea. Despite being linked with Manchester United and Real Madrid, amongst others, on June 14, 2006 it was announced that he had joined Barcelona on a three year contract, with the option of an additional year.

Barcelona

Guðjohnsen was signed by Barcelona to replace Henrik Larsson, who had decided to finish his career at his home town club of Helsingborg in Sweden.[4][5] The fee was claimed to be €12 million with an additional €3 million depending on appearances and performances.

On August 28 2006, Gudjohnsen made his La Liga debut in a match against Celta Vigo. With three minutes remaining in the match, he scored the game-winning goal, leading Barcelona to a 3-2 win. When a Celta defender stumbled over Guðjohnsen's first attempt at a shot, the ball bounced in the air and Guðjohnsen volleyed it past the keeper. Guðjohnsen scored against Chelsea in the Champions League in October 2006, and recorded a brace against Mallorca in mid-November. He scored one of the goals against Werder Bremen, 2-0, to take Barcelona to the final sixteen of the Champions League. Guðjohnsen also gained fame in the United States when he scored an impressive goal against Mexican champions Club Deportivo Guadalajara in front of nearly 100,000 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

On December 6, 2006, Eidur scored in a 4-0 win against Club América in the FIFA Club World Cup semifinals.

On March 6 2007, Guðjohnsen scored for Barcelona as they fought to overturn their disadvantage in a UEFA Champions League match against Liverpool at Anfield. Despite winning the match, Barcelona were knocked out of the Champions League on away goals.

He ended 2006/07 season with 12 goals in all competitions, only three biggest Barcelona stars (Ronaldinho, Eto`o, Messi) have scored more. He was club top scorer in Champions League with 3 goals.

Although Guðjohnsen played reasonably well in his first season with Barcelona, he did not seem to have fulfilled the expectations of neither Frank Rijkaard nor the Barcelona fans.[citation needed] During the summer of 2007 he was widely expected to be moving on and was linked with virtually every Premier League team in England.[citation needed] Barcelona did, however, not take any concrete steps to off-load him.[citation needed] Because of injury, nothing happened anyway and, come autumn, Gudjohnsen took his place on the Barcelona bench. He claimed he was determined to fight his way back into the team but as Barcelona had by now acquired the services of Thierry Henry and given first-team places to young strikers Giovani Dos Santos and Bojan Krkić, he faced a formidable task. He made his first appearance of the season on October 23 against Rangers in the Champions League playing as a centre midfielder. Guðjohnsen scored his first goal of the 2007/08 season from the penalty spot in the 89th minute in Barcelona's 3-0 Copa del Rey victory over Alcoyano on November 13. On 15th December Gudjohnsen scored his first La Liga goal, of the season in Barça's highest win (3-0) at Mestalla against Valencia CF since the 1997/98 season.

On February 20 2007 he made his 50th appearance in UEFA Champions League match.

International career

Guðjohnsen joined the Iceland national team in 1996 and since then he has been capped 48 times and scored 19 times. He surpassed Ríkhardur Jónsson's Icelandic record of 17 international goals on October 13 2007 by scoring twice in a 2-4 home loss to Latvia.[6]

Personal life

  • He has two children: two sons called Sveinn & Andri-Lucas with his wife, Ragnhildur.

Statistics

All-time club performance

As of December 15, 2007[7][8]

Club Season League Cup Europe[9] Total
Apps Goals Apps Goals Apps Goals Apps Goals
Valur Reykjavík 1995 17 7 17 7
Total 17 7 17 7
PSV 1995-96 14 4 13 3
1996-97 0 0 0 0
Total 13 3 13 3
KR Reykjavík 1998 6 0 6 0
Total 6 0 6 0
Bolton 1998-99 14 5 14 5
1999-00 ? ? 41 13
Total ? ? 55 18
Chelsea 2000-01 30 10 30 10
2001-02 29 14 11 6 3 3 43 23
2002-03 35 10 7 0 2 0 44 10
2003-04 25 6 5 4 10 3 48 13
2004-05 37 12 9 2 11 2 59 16
2005-06 26 2 5 1 6 0 37 3
Total 182 54 37 13 32 8 261 75
FC Barcelona 2006-07 25 5 5 3 8 3 38 11
2007-08 12 2 5 1 4 0 21 3
Total 32 6 7 4 12 3 50 13
Career totals 250? 70? 42 14 44 11 402 116

Honours

References

  1. ^ Footballdatabase profile and stats
  2. ^ "ESPN Profile". ESPN.
  3. ^ Gudjohnsen in casino woe, BBC Sport, January 12, 2003
  4. ^ Guðjohnsen completes Barca move, BBC Sport, June 14, 2006
  5. ^ Guðjohnsen set to sign, FC Barcelona, June 14, 2006
  6. ^ Iceland record bittersweet for Gudjohnsen
  7. ^ Soccernet player statistics
  8. ^ [http://www.footballdatabase.com/index.php?page=player&Id=998&b=true&pn=Ei%C3%B0ur_Sm%C3%A1ri_Gu%C3%B0johnsen Footballdatabase player statistics
  9. ^ Includes UEFA Supercup

External links

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