Startsida Fotboll Säsongen 2003

Fylkir-AIK - supportersnack

Aik.se och Exilgnagare.com’s intervjuserie om Fylkir fortsätter idag med supportern Helgi Már Bjarnason som svarar på frågor om Isländsk fotboll, Fylkir och vad han tror om matchen mot AIK. (Svaren är återgivna i sin originalform, utan redigering.)

Fylkir has started the season very well this year and is only two points behind the leader after half the series has been completed (11/07/2003). Is this in line with your expectations and what are the prospects for your team in the league this year?
This is the fourth season in a row that Fylkir is battling in the top spot. The fans are happy that finally the club is experiencing good times. By working with youngsters and the youth teams we finally came through with a good team. Fylkir got promoted once again from the 1st division back after the season in 1999 and were a surprise SPUTNIK team the summer of 2000. In the last match of the season we had a dramatic fight with KR for the title. The Year after, the summer of 2001, we had the same success and won the Cup-title for the first time, the first big title the club won. Last summer we once again fought all the season with KR for the title and once again they took it from our grasps in the last match of the season. We took the cup title again last year, our best season ever. The first half of this season has been OK, nothing more. The fans are still expecting the team to top their form and performance. We are out of the cup and surprisingly lost some points in the league. We hope for the best of course and hope that we finally will end the season at the top of the table after gaining some experience in the top fight.

Please tell us a bit about Fylkir and your greatest moments!
FC Fylkir is a young club (founded in 1967) in one of the suburbs of East Reykjavík. The club has always been known and somewhat respected for their youth program although the club was always in the lower leagues. It was in 1989 the club finally made it to the Premiership but were relegated again. In the 90’s Fylkir was a jo-jo team between 1st division and Premiership. There have been some dramatic moments in the battle of surviving in the Premiership. One fact to underline that is that Fylkir have always been relegated on goal-difference and is the only team that has been relegated with 19 points. The success of the club since 1999 has been great and the team has finally established itself as one of the best clubs in Iceland. The core of the team is made of players that have been brought up from young age. Fylkir is well known for “breeding” their own players and to rely on the young players rather than buying players from abroad or other teams. This season the starting team have had 8-10 players that have been at the club since they were 7-8 years old. Alli, our manager, is giving the young players a chance. The Youth program at the club is finally paying up. Some of them have been sold to other clubs in Norway and England.

If you were to present to the readers some of the key players of your team, who would they be and why?
Alli is giving the young players a chance although the “core” of the team for the past years are players born in 1972, Finnur Kolbeinsson the captain is without doubt the key player being elected the best player of the Icelandic league last year. Thorhallur Dan Johannsson, a anchor player in the back of the defence, a former striker who is fast and reliable. Gunnar Thor Petursson, a left back who was in the team of the year last season is a good player who gives the attack some depth. There are many young players that have emerged during the past success years. Two of them came from England again after being sold there, Helgi Valur Danielsson, Central Midfield player that came back from Peterborough and Olafur Ingi Skulason that came on loan from Arsenal this summer. Other key players that I would like to mention are; Sverrir Sverrisson our oldest and experienced player, came from Malmo in 1999. Valur Fannar Gislason, who is one of few players Fylkir has bought from another Icelandic team (Fram), he is a key defender and has some experience from England (Bolton). The fastest striker of the Icelandic league, Haukur Ingi Skulason, who joined Fylkir before this season, has scored 5 goals so far and hopefully he will give the defenders of AIK some hard time.

In Sweden, Icelandic football is not very well known. How is your knowledge of Swedish football?
Well, to be frank, I know more about Norwegian and Danish football. That´s probably because we have many Icelanders playing in the Norwegian league and not so many years ago also in the Danish league. I know teams like Djurgarden, Halmstad, Malmö and Göteborg but I am not following it on a week by week basis. But I can imagine that the Swedish league is very good, better than the Icelandic one because of the simple fact that you are many millions and we are 300.000….hehe. If we speculate a little bit, I would think that Fylkir and KR would be struggling in the middle of the Swedish league if allowed to play there. It is an interesting idea to play a Scandinavian league wouldn´t you think?

Swedish and Icelandic teams have met five times in the european cups and the Swedes have come out on top in three of these encounters. What are your thoughts on the game between AIK and Fylkir, and what is the general opinion amongst media and football supporters in Iceland concerning this match?
I think the two games will be tough. If we are going to win we need a combination of luck and our best game of the year. Especially we have to be careful in the away match, if we get good results there everything can happen. We have had that combination before so we hope for the best. The partipication in the UEFA cup is always regarded as a bonus for the teams here and players look at it as an oportunity to get an attention from scouts in Europe.

Fylkir was the last Icelandic team to get through at least one round in a European cup (against Polish side Pogon Szczecin in a surprise win 2001/02). What would be the key to success in this years competition and which players do you consider to be the most important in order for your team to progress?
Well, as said before, if we manage to get a good result in the first game, a draw for example, or an away goal we could get a chance to finish you off when you visit us. A good organized defence with fast breaks must be the strategy here. You can expect us to get behind the ball and try to slow the pace of the game. When we get the opportunity we use our fast attackers to do some damage.

Another team from Iceland is participating in this years UEFA cup. Grindavik is playing Austrian line-up Kärnten. In the Champions Leauge KR will take on Armenian side FC Pyunik. What do you think their chances are in their respective matches and how do you look at these matches? Would you be happy to see them win and go through to the next round, or is the rivalry too great and you'd prefer to have them eliminated?
Well KR did well in Armenia but not in the home game and are out. This FC Pyunik team was very strong with some 5 Argentinian players. I think Grindavik have similar odds against Karnten we have against AIK.

Interest for football has grown drastically in Sweden over the past 5-10 years. What is the supporterlife like in Iceland? How many people come to the games and do supporters travel to away games as well? What would the standard day be like for a Fylkir supporter before a match at your home stadium?
Here is the main difference between Iceland and Sweden. The best attendance last year in the Icelandic league was the dramatic game between Fylkir and KR, 5000 people. The trend for the past 2-3 years has however been similar to the Swedish one…an increase in support. A standard day for a support is to go to the local restaurant/pub 2 hours before a match and meet other supporters. Some have some superstition or rituals to do. On home matches we go to a big meeting room at Fylkishöllin and 30 minutes before the game the coach arrives and introduces the starting line-up and the strategy for the coming match.

Finally, if you were to bet on the the AIK-Fylkir encounter, what would the result you put down for the two games?
Hehe….ok I am going to be optimistic. We will loose the first game, 1-2, after surprisingly gaining the lead in first half. At home we will fight to a win 1-0 or 2-0.

Text: Johan Florén AIK.se
Jesper Florén, Exilgnagare.com
[030811]