Matthías Vilhjálmsson (born 30 January 1987) is an Icelandic international

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 as a striker for the

Úrvalsdeild The Besta deild karla () is a professional association football league in Iceland and the highest level of the Icelandic football league system. The competition was founded in 1912 as the Icelandic Championship. Because of the harsh winters in I ...

club Víkingur. He can as well play 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 also played for the Icelandic national football team from 2009 to 2016. Matthías, also known as ''Matti Vill'', has previously played for the Icelandic clubs BÍ and FH, the English club

Colchester United Colchester United Football Club is a professional association football club based in the city of Colchester, Essex, England. The team competes in , the fourth level of the English football league system. Founded in 1937, the club spent its ea ...

and the Norwegian club

Start Start can refer to multiple topics: * Takeoff, the phase of flight where an aircraft transitions from moving along the ground to flying through the air * Starting lineup in sports * Track and field#Starts use in race, Starts use in sport race * S ...

Career

Early career

Matthías 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 ...

and grew up in

Ísafjörður Ísafjörður (pronounced , meaning ''ice fjord'', literally ''fjord of ices'') is a town in the northwest of Iceland. The oldest part of Ísafjörður with the town centre is located on a spit of sand, or ''eyri'', in Skutulsfjörður, a fjord ...

where he played with BÍ until he was 17 years old. He moved to

Hafnarfjörður Hafnarfjörður, officially Hafnarfjarðarkaupstaður, is a port town and municipality in Iceland, located about south of Reykjavík. The municipality consists of two non-contiguous areas in the Capital Region (Iceland), Capital Region, on the s ...

in 2004 to play with FH where he enjoyed early success with the youth teams of FH, winning the cup in 2004 and also the double in 2005, which is the only group in the club who have won the double. Matthías made his first-team debut for FH at the age of 18 in the last match of the 2005 season. He came on as a substitute with 20 minutes were left in the game, after one minute he was awarded a penalty which the team's top goalscorer

Tryggvi Guðmundsson Tryggvi Guðmundsson (born 30 July 1974) is an Icelandic former professional association football, footballer. He is Iceland's all-time top scorer in the Úrvalsdeild. He is the highest scoring male Icelandic footballer of all time in associati ...

converted to complete his hattrick. Between 2006 and 2010, Matthías won five titles with his team, three league titles and two cups. In 2007, he was voted the best young player in the league by other players. The 2009 season also ended with a league title, and he had most assists in the league and was the player with sixth most goals despite playing as a midfielder or right back. In the spring of 2010 he became one of the youngest captains in the history of FH when he was selected as the club captain for the 2010 season by his manager Heimir Guðjónsson. The same season, Matthías was voted the best midfielder in the league by other players in a survey by the most popular football website in Iceland, www.fotbolti.net. The highlight of the season was when FH won the cup 4–0 against their rivals KR where Matthías scored first two goals from the penalty spot before lifting the trophy after the game.

England

Matthías joined

on trial in November 2010. He impressed the manager John Ward enough to earn a loan deal to the end of the season with the option of a permanent deal. Matthías made his début as an 83rd-minute substitute in a 2–0 defeat against

Brighton & Hove Albion Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club, commonly referred to as Brighton, is a professional football club based in Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. Their home gr ...

where he replaced Dave Mooney, as the club went on to lose 3-0. Matthías made two more appearances for Colchester United, both coming on as a substitute. Due to lack of first team opportunities at the club, he asked Colchester United for his release, which was granted on 3 March 2011 and returned back to Iceland.

Norway

Ahead of the 2012-season, Matthías joined

Norwegian First Division The Norwegian First Division, also called 1. divisjon () and OBOS-ligaen (due to sponsoring ties with :no:OBOS, OBOS), is the second-highest level of the Norwegian football league system. Each year, the top finishing teams in the 1. divisjon ...

club

on a season-long loan-deal. He scored 18 goals for the team during the season, and became the top goalscorer in the 2012 Norwegian First Division when Start won promotion to

Tippeligaen Eliteserien () is a professional association football league in Norway and the highest level of the Norwegian football league system. Contested by 16 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the Norwegian First Division ...

. Ahead of the 2012-season he joined Start on a permanent deal, and signed a two-year contract with the club. On 25 July 2015, after weeks of speculations, Matthías signed for the Norwegian club Rosenborg on a two-and-a-half-year deal.

Return to Iceland

Matthías returned to Iceland and joined FH in 2021. In April 2023, he played his 400th match in the Icelandic top-tier league.

Career statistics

Club

International goals

:''Scores and results list Iceland's goal tally first.''

Honours

FH * Icelandic League (3):

2006 2006 was designated as the International Year of Deserts and Desertification. Events January * January 1– 4 – Russia temporarily cuts shipment of natural gas to Ukraine during a price dispute. * January 12 – A stampede during t ...

2008 2008 was designated as: *International Year of Languages *International Year of Planet Earth *International Year of the Potato *International Year of Sanitation The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued throu ...

2009 2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first known astronomical studies with a telescope and the publication of Astronomia Nova by Joha ...

* Icelandic Cup (2):

2007 2007 was designated as the International Heliophysical Year and the International Polar Year. Events January * January 1 **Bulgaria and Romania 2007 enlargement of the European Union, join the European Union, while Slovenia joins the Eur ...

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

* Icelandic League Cup (4) 2006, 2007, 2009, 2022 * Icelandic Super Cup (3) 2007, 2008, 2010 Rosenborg * Norwegian League (4):

2015 2015 was designated by the United Nations as: * International Year of Light * International Year of Soil __TOC__ Events January * January 1 – Lithuania officially adopts the euro as its currency, replacing the litas, and becomes ...

2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

2017 2017 was designated as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development by the United Nations General Assembly. Events January * January 1 – Istanbul nightclub shooting: A gunman dressed as Santa Claus opens fire at the ...

2018 Events January * January 1 – Bulgaria takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, after the Estonian presidency. * January 4 – SPLM-IO rebels loyal to Chan Garang Lual start a raid against Juba, capital of ...

Norwegian Football Cup The Norwegian Football Cup () is the main knockout cup competition in Norwegian football. It is run by the Football Association of Norway and has been contested since 1902, making it the oldest football tournament in the country. The tournament ...

(3):

Mesterfinalen Mesterfinalen (), also known as UNICEF Mesterfinalen due to its cooperation with UNICEF, is a Norwegian association football competition contested between the champions of the previous Eliteserien season and the holders of the Norwegian Football ...

(1):

Vikingur * Icelandic League (1):

2023 Catastrophic natural disasters in 2023 included the Lists of 21st-century earthquakes, 5th-deadliest earthquake of the 21st century 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes, striking Turkey and Syria, leaving up to 62,000 people dead; Cyclone Freddy ...

* Icelandic Cup (1):

* Icelandic Super Cup (1): 2024

Individual

Norwegian Cup The Norwegian Football Cup () is the main knockout cup competition in Norwegian football. It is run by the Football Association of Norway and has been contested since 1902, making it the oldest football tournament in the country. The tournament ...

Top goalscorer:

References

External links