Ólafur Ingi Skúlason (born 1 April 1983) is an Icelandic former professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

who played as a

midfielder In the sport of association football, a midfielder takes an Glossary of association football terms#O, outfield position primarily in the middle of the pitch. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in t ...

. He is the manager of Iceland national under-19 football team and the Iceland national under-15 women's team.

Club career

Ólafur was born in

Reykjavík Reykjavík is the Capital city, capital and largest city in Iceland. It is located in southwestern Iceland on the southern shore of Faxaflói, the Faxaflói Bay. With a latitude of 64°08′ N, the city is List of northernmost items, the worl ...

, Iceland, where he played for

Fylkir Íþróttafélagið Fylkir (, ) is a multi-sport club in Árbær, in the eastern part of Reykjavík, the capital of Iceland. It features departments in football, handball, volleyball, gymnastics and karate. Kit The Fylkir official home kit is ...

. After the Icelandic season had come to a close, he was looking for new employment, and found it with

Arsenal An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whether privately or publicly owned. Arsenal and armoury (British English) or armory (American English) are mostly ...

on 1 July 2001. Ólafur was loaned back to Fylkir over a part of the 2003 season, and was voted the best young player in the Icelandic league 2003. His Arsenal debut came on 2 December 2003 in a 5–1 defeat of

Wolverhampton Wanderers Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club ( ), commonly referred to as Wolves, is a professional association football, football club based in Wolverhampton, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football league s ...

, replacing Justin Hoyte after 55 minutes of the match. Ólafur was released by Arsenal on 28 May 2005. He signed for Brentford on 22 June 2005. Upon his arrival at Brentford, the club's website quoted him as saying: "I look at this as a very important move for my career, knowing that manager Martin Allen had been interested in signing me for a while was a huge compliment for me." In the second game of the 2005–06 season, Ólafur suffered a cruciate and medial ligament injury resulting from a tackle with Chesterfield's Derek Niven, which ruled him out for the rest of the season. He was passed fit for the start of the 2006–07 season and completed his comeback by scoring the winner in a 1–0 win over

Blackpool Blackpool is a seaside town in Lancashire, England. It is located on the Irish Sea coast of the Fylde peninsula, approximately north of Liverpool and west of Preston, Lancashire, Preston. It is the main settlement in the Borough of Blackpool ...

, the first game of the season. He signed for

Helsingborgs IF Helsingborgs Idrottsförening, commonly referred to as Helsingborgs IF, Helsingborg or (especially locally) HIF (), is a Swedish professional football club located in Helsingborg. They play in the Swedish second tier, Superettan, following releg ...

on 21 February 2007. After three successful years in Helsingborg, Ólafur turned down a new contract offer and signed for Danish team

SønderjyskE SønderjyskE is a Denmark, Danish sport corporation. They have a Football (soccer), football team (SønderjyskE Fodbold, based in Haderslev), two team handball, handball teams (SønderjyskE Håndbold, one male based in Sønderborg, one female bas ...

on 6 December 2009. A year later Ólafur signed for Zulte Waregem in Belgium and stayed there for four years. He then plied his trade in Turkey for a few years before returning to Fylkir. Ólafur returned to former club Fylkir in 2018.

International career

Ólafur earned his first cap for

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

in a friendly against

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

on 20 November 2003 as a substitute, replacing Veigar Páll Gunnarsson. He has also captained their U21 team. Although playing almost 30 international games for over ten years, Ólafur never quite managed to become a regular first team member of the Icelandic team. He was, however, a useful squad member and played three games as a substitute in Iceland's successful qualification for Euro 2016, including Iceland's famous win over the Netherlands in Amsterdam. He was not selected for Iceland's Euro 2016 team. In May 2018 he was named in Iceland's 23-man squad for the

2018 World Cup The 2018 FIFA World Cup was the 21st FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for national football teams organized by FIFA. It took place in Russia from 14 June to 15 July 2018, after the country was awarded the hosting rights in l ...

in Russia.

Career statistics

:''Scores and results list Iceland's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Ólafur goal.''

References

External links