Heimasíðan www.siggiraggi.is er í breytingarferli og ætlunin er að gera hana einfaldari, flottari og betri. Ætlunin er að breyta útlitinu, jafnframt munu koma inn fleiri myndir og vídeó m.a. með brot úr fyrirlestrum til að gera síðuna skemmtilegri og meira lifandi. Vonandi koma svo fleiri jákvæðar breytingar í kjölfarið. Alls hafa 106.000 gestir heimsótt síðuna alls staðar að úr heiminum en síðan byrjaði sem hugmynd til að deila með fólki hvað þarf til að ná árangri og gefa fleirum kost á að fá um það fræðslu. Fjölmargir aðilar hafa í gegnum tíðina haft samband í gegnum síðuna og pantað fyrirlestra. Þannig hef ég haldið fyrirlestra allt frá því að vera fyrir bara 1 mann upp í að halda fyrirlestur fyrir 800 manns á Starfsmannadegi Landsbankans. Þá hef ég haldið fyrirlestra bæði á íslensku, ensku og norsku og jafnt á höfuðborgarsvæðinu sem og út um allt land. Ég hef haldið fyrirlestra fyrir fjölmörg landslið, skóla, fyrirtæki, starfsmenn, stjórnendur, hópa og stofnanir. Ef þið hafið tillögur um hvað þið viljið sjá á síðunni eða viljið panta fyrirlestur getið þið sent mér póst á siggiraggi73@gmail.com eða hringt í síma 848-8040 Siggi Raggi.
My presentation given as invited speaker at the Norwegian Cup final seminar, November 20th 2015. The unbelievable success of Icelandic football explained. Tell me what you think…
As head coach of IBV in the men´s top league in Iceland this season I decided to sign a striker from Trinidad and Tobago in February this year. His name was Jonathan Glenn, he was 26 years old and had been playing in the lower leagues (PDL and NPSL who are considered 4th tier ) in USA and before that he played for a Division II college in Florida called St. Leo University.
Originally I saw a video of Jonathan that impressed me and invited him in for trial. He played in 2 matches for us and was a bit out of shape. What impressed me about him was that he was very strong physically, very fast and excellent with his back to goal. He had confidence and a good attitude. He could also take players on. So I signed him. I could help him work on his fitness, that is the easy part to fix. He also needed to simplify his game, work on intelligent runs when he did not have the ball and to become a better finisher.
The paperwork took about 2 months to clear so when Jonathan finally arrived in Iceland he was really out of shape but had willingness to work hard and did extra after training. 3 weeks before the season started he pulled his hamstring so we could not push him hard in training. Jonathan started in our first match of the season. Jonathan struggled.
Jonathan had played in several pre-season matches without scoring and in fact he only scored 1 goal in his first 12 matches for IBV. During that spell pretty much everyone came to me and told me to send the player home. Jonathan was slaughtered by the TV pundits, the fans, even by some of the players and members of the board. I was under pressure because our team was not doing well.
But I kept on playing him because I believed in him.
Jonathan scored 15 goals in his next 20 matches for IBV. He scored 43% of all goals IBV scored in the league this season and came 2nd leading goal scorer in the league. He got player of the year for IBV, became leading goalscorer at IBV and was selected into the Team of the year in the top league after the season. Jonathan also scored Best goal of the year in the Pepsi league.
Today Jonathan Glenn was selected into the A-national team of Trinidad and Tobago for the first time. What´s next?
There is a lesson here in talent identification and also in talent development. I am sure you can figure them out and comment below.
Here is the original video I received of Jonathan. Have a look and see if you can spot a player who in 9 months became an A-national team player for his country and became one of the best players in the top league in Iceland within months. Would you have signed him and why?
It is likely that you will see Jonathan playing in the MLS this season or in one of the top leagues in Scandinavia. If you like this post, please share it.
If Iceland was a US city it would rank 58th in population among US cities with considerably fewer inhabitants than Honolulu, Hawai! Yet Iceland ranks 28th on the FIFA ranking list after their last match in which they beat the bronze medalists from the FIFA World Cup 2014 – Netherlands 2-0.
Many of you contacted me and wanted to learn more about what we are doing in Iceland in developing our players so here are the first 3 amazing facts that should get you thinking about learning more from Icelandic player development.
1. Icelandic clubs regularly give young players a chance to play 1st team football.
Eidur Gudjohnsen is an Icelander won the English Premier League with Chelsea and won the Champions League with Barcelona and the list goes on. Eidur started playing in the Icelandic top league at age 15 and scored 7 goals in 17 matches that year. Eidur was exceptionally young but in general Icelandic players are regularly given a chance to play 1st team football, even in the top league. This aids the development of our young players.
Sometimes Icelandic clubs do not even get the chance to play their young players because they are scouted when they play for the youth national teams and are then signed by bigger clubs abroad before they reach enough maturity to play 1st team football in Iceland.
However around half the national team that started in the match against Netherlands have played less than a season in the top league in Iceland. They received their foundation in Iceland but when they became really promising as players they were bought by foreign clubs where they continued their development and kept improving as players. Iceland has around 90 professional players playing abroad, they have moved abroad at different ages and it is tough to say at which age players should make that transition, I think you need to look at each individual case, the same rule does not apply to all.
2. Coach education for all coaches!
If you want to be a football coach in Iceland, you have to have coach education, even if you want to coach beginners at the grassroots level. Around 70% of all coaches have completed the UEFA B licence (124 hours) and around 30% have completed the UEFA A licence (120 hours). This is counting all coaches, even at the grassroots level. On top of that many of the coaches are educated physical education teachers or have completed a Bachelors degree in Exercise and sport science. All the clubs in the top 2 leagues undergo a club licencing system where coach education for all their coaches is mandatory and the clubs get fined by the Icelandic Football Association if they do not fulfill the coach education requirements. This has created a whole country of educated coaches who receive the basic tools they need to coach straight from the FA of Iceland.
3. Producing outstanding international players by working with what you have got!
In 1984, Icelandic player Asgeir Sigurvinsson was voted best player in the German Bundesliga after captaining his side VFB Stuttgart to winning the Bundesliga. Sigurvinsson developed in Westman islands on a small isolated island south of Iceland playing for IBV until he became 17 years old. The town of Westman islands only has around 4.200 inhabitants and is too remote to recruit youth players from elsewhere.
Hermann Hreidarsson developed at the same club, Hreidarsson played 15 seasons in English football and in 2011 he became the Scandinavian player who has played most matches in the history of the English Premier League.
On the female side, Margret Lara Vidarsdottir also grew up in the town, she is Iceland´s best goalscorer ever and has scored 71 goals in 94 matches for the Icelandic women´s national team. Not many players in the world can say they have a goalscoring record like that!
Think about how crazy this is… 4.200 inhabitants means that the whole town only has around 35-50 people born in a certain year, and only a part of them become football players and since the club is based on a small island they are stuck with that extremely small player pool to select from. They have to develop what they have got, they cannot recruit from elsewhere, they don´t recruit for talent. The lesson to learn here for player development is that you can develop good young promising players anywhere. I can name you at least 10 more players who have become professional players abroad coming from this small club.
Many of Iceland´s best players have developed in small clubs from the countryside. Have a look at another small club in Iceland IA Akranes who are a town of 6.000 people who have sold 30 homegrown players to bigger professional clubs abroad in 30 years. They do not recruit talented young players from elsewhere, they work with what they have got. Here is a video where they are featured on UEFA Training Ground.
And when you go to your next coaching session tomorrow think about this quote from Joachim Löw the national team head coach of World Champions 2014 Germany, this is what he said after winning the World Cup in Brazil:
“Youth coaches create World Champions”
If you are a technical director, in charge of a club, a CEO or a head youth coach think about how good your youth coaches are and if they have the right tools to teach the players the skills they need to become successful players.
If you want to know more about Icelandic player development or buy a presentation on it for your coaches, your club, your state, your national association etc. let me know.
More amazing facts on the Icelandic football wonder to follow, that is if you want to know more? It would be nice to hear what you think.
Siggi
Siggi Eyjolfsson
Ex technical director/coach education director, F.A. of Iceland 2002-2014
Iceland´s Women´s national team head coach 2007-2013
Head coach at IBV in the men´s Icelandic top league 2014.
UEFA Pro licence coach from the English F.A.
Currently looking for my next challenge in football.
Iceland is ranked 28th among the best football nations in the world in the most recent FIFA ranking. Iceland has a population of only 325.000 people (ranks nr 181 in the world in total population) and has only 20.000 players. Yet Iceland has footballers playing in all the major top leagues (England, Spain, Italy etc.) Iceland is ranked higher than all the Scandinavian countries now for the first time in history. In it´s most recent match Iceland beat Netherlands 2-0 in a EURO qualifier and they are sitting at the top of their group after 3-0 wins against Latvia and Turkey. Iceland was very close to qualifying for the World Cup in Brazil, they lost in the playoffs against Croatia. Iceland would have become the smallest country ever to qualify for a World Cup.
Iceland´s women´s national team reached the quarterfinals at the Women´s EURO 2013 in Sweden. They also qualified for the Women´s Euro 2009. The U21 men´s national team was among the top 8 nations at the EURO 2011 in Denmark. Iceland´s youth national teams regularly qualify for final tournaments.
Maybe it is a good idea for others to have a look at what Iceland is doing in their player development?
The leading goalscorer in the top league in Netherlands was Alfred Finnbogason, he is Icelandic.
The leading goalscorer in the Norwegian top league is Vidar Orn Kjartansson, he is Icelandic.
Or maybe you heard of Gylfi Sigurdsson at Swansea who has been one of the best players in the English Premier league this season who scored both goals against Netherlands in Iceland´s last match?
Iceland has around 90 professional players playing abroad.
Iceland has the shortest football season in the world, has limited financial resources and has the 5th smallest population among the 53 UEFA nations. Yet they outperform much bigger countries with much more resources every year.
Iceland also has a unique model in their player development that other countries can learn from. They have put a heavy emphasis on educating all the coaches at all levels since 2002 and have invested heavily in winter facilities to make football a year round sport. All coaches in Iceland at all levels get paid, there are no volunteer coaches or parent coaches and they develop all players, not just the best ones. A very high percentage of all coaches have completed the UEFA coaching licences, even the grassroots coaches working with beginners. Few countries do better in developing young players than Iceland.
If you are interested in more information about how Iceland outperforms around 150 bigger countries in football or if you would like to buy a presentation on the topic, please contact me…
Siggi Eyjolfsson
Ex technical director/coach education director, F.A. of Iceland 2002-2014
Iceland´s Women´s national team head coach 2007-2013
Markmiðið með þessari vefsíðu er að hjálpa íþróttafólki , þjálfurum, stjórnendum og fyrirtækjum að ná betri árangri í því sem þau eru að fást við. Þó efni síðunnar sé íþróttamiðað í flestum tilfellum, þá er auðvelt að tengja það við aðra hluti eins og stjórnun, nám, fyrirtækjarekstur eða starfið þitt.
Ef þú hefur áhuga á því að bæta árangur þinn og leita svara við spurningunni hvað þarf til að ná árangri? – þá ertu á réttum stað.
