Eidur's Ice Battle

Last updated : 14 February 2003 By -

Icelandic King!
As Eidur steps out onto the pitch on Sunday afternoon, in the hope of moving Chelsea a step further to FA Cup glory, the Icelandic international should feel pretty much at home at the Staffordshire Club?

Whereas the Blues are proud to possess the Icelandic wonder boy Eidur Gudjohnsen, the Potters have no less than four Icelandic players and are even owned by an Icelandic business consortium including chairman Gunnar Gislason. Apparently even the physiotherapist is from Iceland. Amazing..?

Of course interest for Sunday’s clash has reached new levels back in Iceland as Eidur himself explains.

"Everybody in my country follows Stoke City very closely. And I guess it must be very exciting for them, in such a small population, to say they own an English football club. They will be watching on television and all wanting Stoke to win I guess.

"So I don't know if I'll be very popular if we knock them out, but that's obviously what we will be trying to do.

"I know a lot of the Stoke players, of course. Their centre-half Petur Marteinsson is a big friend of mine because I played in Iceland against him, and played alongside him in the Under-21 and full national team.

"When I heard the draw for the fifth round I rang him up and told him he was coming up against Chelsea and it surprised him. He didn't have a clue because he was out shopping with his wife at the time."

In-form Gudjohnsen acknowledged: "Matches like this are the charm of the FA Cup. They know all about the history of it in my country and so do I.

"I used to watch it on the television as a boy and remember great goals in finals by Ray Wilkins and, before that, Norman Whiteside for Manchester United.

"But for me it is still something to aim at. We got to the final last year against Arsenal and everything about the day was great - except we didn't get our hands on the trophy.

"You can get over the disappointment, of course, because the final is always played close to the end of the season, but it still nags away now that we didn't win it. If we can do it this time it will be the greatest day of my career so far."

Eidur finished by describing the difficulties and hurdles that he had to overcome at the beginning of the season and the subsequent resurrection of his self belief and confidence.

"There were two reasons why I didn't get into the team much at the start of the season.

"One was that I was trying to get fit from an injury and number two was that Gianfranco Zola and Jimmy Floyd were getting so many goals up front.

"Now, though, I feel I'm back to my best and feeling great. I've gained a lot more confidence recently but that has come from playing regularly in the side and scoring goals.

"It must be great for the manager to have three centre-forwards all scoring. It is just a case of picking the right two to play together on the day.

Eidur’s return to form and rediscovered hunger, is likey to cause Stoke a number of problems on Sunday afternoon. Oh… and they also have the little problem of a certain Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink.

If Eidur doesn’t get ya, …If Eidur doesn’t get ya Jimmy will!

stevefurlong@chelsea-mad.co.uk