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Bjarni Guðjónsson

Bjarni Eggerts Guðjónsson (born 26 February 1979) is an Icelandic former professional footballer, who was last manager of KR.

He has played in Belgium, England and Germany and has two brothers who have also played professional football, Þórður and Jóhannes. All three played together at Genk. He is also the son of former footballer and now manager Guðjón Þórðarson.[3]

Club career

Bjarni was born in Akranes.[1] He began his career at his hometown club ÍA, before moving to English club Newcastle United in 1997 for £500,000.[4] He failed to break into the first team at the club and left a year later for Belgian club Genk before returning to England in 2000 with Stoke City in a £250,000 signing joining up with his father Guðjón Þórðarson who was manager.[4] He became a regular in the first team and made 53 appearances in the 2000–01 season however he was transfer listed at the end of the season as his father felt Bjarni was struggling to deal with being the son of the manager.[4] No transfer away from the club was forthcoming and Bjarni stayed for the 2001–02 season and this time played 54 matches as Stoke gained promotion via the play-offs.[5] Despite gaining promotion his father was sacked by the board.[6] Bjarni stayed at Stoke and helped the club to avoid relegation before he joined his brother Þórður Guðjónsson at VfL Bochum on a free transfer.

He struggled to cement a place in the first team at Bochum and was loaned out to Coventry City in 2004 where he excelled under the management of Eric Black.[7] Coventry signed him on a free later that year however he struggled for game time under new manager Peter Reid and eventually fell out of favour.[8] He was signed on a free by Plymouth Argyle who he stayed with for two years and was a popular character,[9] scoring once against Everton in the FA Cup,[10] before joining ÍA again in 2006.[11] In his second spell at ÍA he stayed for two years, until he was sold to KR in 2008.

International career

Bjarni made his debut for Iceland as a substitute for Helgi Sigurðsson in a friendly match against Slovakia in April 1997 and has been capped 19 more times since, scoring once against Liechtenstein in a World Cup qualifier in 1997, as well as captaining his side in a 2008 fixture.

Career statistics

Club

  1. ^ Appearances and goals in the Icelandic Super Cup, Football League play-offs, Football League Trophy, UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League

International

Honours

ÍA

Genk

Stoke City

References

  1. ^ a b "Bjarni Guðjónsson". Barry Hugman's Footballers. Retrieved 2 December 2017.
  2. ^ "Bjarni Eggerts Gudjónsson". Soccerway. Global Sports Media. Retrieved 5 August 2011.
  3. ^ "Bjarni Eggerts Guðjónsson" (in Icelandic). KSÍ. Archived from the original on 15 January 2013. Retrieved 31 March 2013.
  4. ^ a b c "Bjarni Gudjonsson Transfer Listed". Stoke City F.C. Retrieved 2 March 2012.[dead link]
  5. ^ "Stoke seal promotion". BBC Sport. 11 May 2002. Retrieved 2 March 2012.
  6. ^ "Stoke sack Thordarson". BBC Sport. 16 May 2002. Retrieved 2 March 2012.
  7. ^ "Coventry sign Gudjonsson". BBC Sport. 16 January 2004. Retrieved 2 March 2012.
  8. ^ "Plymouth seal deal for Gudjonsson". BBC Sport. 17 December 2004. Retrieved 2 March 2012.
  9. ^ "Green Barmy: Everton FA Cup tie was Gudjonsson's Argyle highlight". 30 March 2018.
  10. ^ "Plymouth 1–3 Everton". BBC Sport. 8 January 2005. Retrieved 6 January 2010.
  11. ^ "Iceland's Gudjonsson exits Argyle". BBC Sport. 31 January 2006. Retrieved 2 March 2012.
  12. ^ "The English National Football Archive". Enfa.co.uk. Retrieved 27 April 2022.
  13. ^ The Football Association of Iceland
  14. ^ Guðjónsson, Bjarni at National-Football-Teams.com
  15. ^ Sidaway, Jon (7 December 2017). "Stoke City FC - Looking Back Down 'Wembley Way'". Stoke City FC. Retrieved 24 March 2024.

External links