Garðar Bergmann Gunnlaugsson (born 7 September 1983) is an

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 ...

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 plays for ÍA Akranes in the Úrvalsdeild karla. He is the younger brother of

Arnar Gunnlaugsson Arnar Bergmann Gunnlaugsson (born 6 March 1973) is an Icelandic football manager who currently manages the Iceland national football team. He is a retired international player. During his career he enjoyed spells at Leicester City, Stoke City, ...

and Bjarki Gunnlaugsson.

Club career

Garðar was born in

Akranes Akranes () is a port town and municipality on the west coast of Iceland, around north of the capital Reykjavík. The area where Akranes is located was settled in the 9th century; however, it did not receive a municipal charter until 1942. His ...

in western Iceland in 1983. He started his football career playing for his local team ÍA Akranes before moving to Valur in 2004. In 2007, he signed with Swedish club

IFK Norrköping Idrottsföreningen Kamraterna Norrköping, more commonly known as IFK Norrköping or simply Norrköping, is a Swedish professional association football, football club based in Norrköping. The club is affiliated to Östergötlands Fotbollför ...

before moving, in August 2008, to Bulgarian side

CSKA Sofia CSKA Sofia () is a Bulgarian professional association football club based in Sofia and currently competing in the country's premier football competition, the First League. ''CSKA'' is an abbreviation for ''Central Sports Club of the Army'' ...

. He signed a three-year contract at Sofia, becoming the first Icelandic footballer to play in the

Bulgarian A PFG The First Professional Football League (), commonly known as Parva Liga or Bulgarian First League (currently known as the efbet League for sponsorship reasons), is a professional association football league in Bulgaria and the highest level of t ...

when he made his debut in a match against

PFC Pirin Blagoevgrad PFC Pirin Blagoevgrad was a Bulgarian professional association football, football club based in Blagoevgrad. History Makedonska slava Club was founded in 1928 as Makedonska Slava (). In 1948, the club joined the newly established FD Julius Der ...

. On 18 January 2010, Garðar officially terminated his contract with CSKA Sofia before signing for Austrian side

LASK Linz Linzer Athletik-Sport-Klub, commonly known as LASK (), or Linzer ASK, is an Austrian professional football club based in Upper-Austrian state capital Linz. It is the oldest football club in that region, and plays in the Austrian Football Bundes ...

in February 2010, making his debut for LASK in April due to groin injuries. In July 2010 Garðar signed a 2-year contract with German side

SpVgg Unterhaching Spielvereinigung Unterhaching () is a German sports club in Unterhaching, a semi-rural municipality on the southern outskirts of the Bavarian capital Munich. The club is widely known for playing in the first-division association football league ...

, but left the club after one year, returning to ÍA Akranes where he had begun his career. In November 2018, Garðar signed with Valur. In August 2019, he announced that he would miss the rest of the

season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's axial tilt, tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperat ...

due to a

slipped disc A disc herniation or spinal disc herniation is an injury to the intervertebral disc between two vertebrae, usually caused by excessive strain or trauma to the spine. It may result in back pain, pain or sensation in different parts of the body, ...

in his lower back and that it was unlikely that he would continue his football career. In June 2020, Gunnlaugsson returned to the pitch, after signing with 2. deild karla side Kári. In May 2020, 39-year old Gunnlaugsson signed with his former club, ÍA Akranes, in the top level men's football league in Iceland.

International career

Garðar has played for Iceland U-19 and U-21 but did not make his debut for the senior team until 13 January 2016 in a friendly against

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

Personal life

He was married to model Ásdís Rán Gunnarsdóttir with whom he has a daughter and a son. They divorced in 2012.

References

External links