Eyjólfur Sverrisson

Eyjólfur Gjafar Sverrisson (born 3 August 1968) is an Icelandic former footballer and former coach of the Iceland national football team.
He is the father of Hólmar Örn Eyjólfsson, who plays for Maccabi Haifa F.C. in Israel.

Club career

Eyjólfur started his career as a striker at local team UMF Tindastóll and moved to VfB Stuttgart in 1989. From 1989 to 1994 he played for VfB Stuttgart, where he became German champion in 1992. After five seasons, he moved to play in midfield for Beşiktaş J.K. in Turkey and became Turkish champion with the team in 1995. He left them at the end of that season and changed to Hertha BSC, where he helped securing promotion to the Bundesliga in 1997 and won the DFB-Ligapokal in 2001 and 2002. In his last couple of seasons he played as a defender.

During his Bundesliga career, Eyjólfur played 251 matches and scored 30 goals.

International career

He was capped 66 times for Iceland, making his debut in a Euro 1992 qualifying match in May 1991 against Albania. During the 1990s he was one of the stars of the national team and also skippered them. His last international came in October 2001, in a World cup qualifier against Denmark which Iceland lost 0–6 away.

In October 2005 he was appointed the coach of the Iceland national football team, where he has struggled, only winning two of his first 14 competitive games. Eyjólfur was sacked on the 27 October 2007.

While managing the Iceland U21 men's football team, he signed a short-term contract as assistant with VfL Wolfsburg on 10 February 2011.

Coaching career statistics

Before moving to Stuttgart, he was also one of Iceland's best basketball players. He played with his local team and in one year he averaged over 30 points per game.