Glódís Perla Viggósdóttir's former coaches reflect on how she became one of Europe's best defenders
The 30-year-old Bayern Munich star gained a first Ballon d'Or nomination last year, and now she is finally gaining the recognition her former coaches saw in her from a fledgling teenager...
It’s less than a year ago since the name Glódís Perla Viggósdóttir first popped up on a Ballon d’Or list, but for many it was a milestone which was long overdue.
Hailing from a town of just 40,000 people in Iceland, Viggósdóttir has made her way gradually to the top, and as she turns 30 just a week out from the 2025 European Championships in Switzerland, she has finally been adorned with some of the recognition she deserves.
But the commanding centre-back has never been short of such acclaim in her homeland where she’s been named Icelandic Women’s Footballer of the Year in three successive years now, going as far as being named the countries Sportsperson of the Year outright in last year.
Much of it has been down to finally getting an opportunity in the ‘mainstream’, with Iceland still irregular faces at major tournaments, but her move to German giants Bayern Munich has exposed her to more regular Champions League knockout football and therefore the eyes of more fans, and only now is the name Viggósdóttir being more revered around Europe to those less familiar with her game.
It is though already 13 years since she made her senior national team debut, but her early days were spent playing between Iceland’s and Denmark’s domestic leagues, before her big break came in 2015 when she earned a move to Sweden, first with Eskilstuna United, and then with the legendary FC Rosengård.
Those who have worked with over years, spanning right back to the days she was a fledgling teenager in her hometown, are not surprised Viggósdóttir is now known as one of the best defenders in the women’s game…
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“When she was coming through with us at HK, she was probably just 13 or 14 years old,” recalls Guðmundur Óskar Pálsson, the team’s head coach at the time.
HK, otherwise known by its full name of Handknattleiksfélag Kópavogs, was Viggósdóttir’s local team in her birthplace of Kópavogur, the place her pathway to where is today began.
“She started training with us back then,” Pálsson continues. “Everybody could see we had a special player there. She was just 14, started her first game in August or something like that, against Selfoss I think, but the coaches and senior players could see straight away we had quite a special talent on our hands.”
Pálsson only joined HK that season, with Viggósdóttir already embedded in the club’s youth teams, but when her soon-to-be head coach went looking for the best young talent in the academy, it wasn’t long before the defender’s name came up.
“I asked the youth coaches who had the ability or were good enough to go and train with the first team. We had a few, and Glódís was the youngest to come up and train with us. We had a young team all that season, but in the first training session I could see she was a little bit better than the others because she bossed the senior sessions.
“I remember talking to the senior players I knew and saying we obviously had a really special young player on our hands. I asked the youth coaches if we could move her up, I remember that was a conversation I had to have them with them, but with her and with her dad too, about moving her up in a healthy manner to the senior team.”
Despite being just 14, there were no doubts about her physical readiness to go and play senior football.
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