Hákon Valdimarsson: Dark Horse | OneFootball

Most Brentford fans might assume that, as a 22-year-old goalkeeper, Hákon Valdimarsson’s penalty save against Colchester United on his Bees debut in the Carabao Cup second round might be one of the biggest moments of the youngster’s career.

But, when you consider he made his senior debut aged just 15, played an integral part in one of the most surprising seasons in Icelandic football history, featured in the craziest title-decider in Swedish football history, and kept out both Cristiano Ronaldo and Harry Kane - two of the greatest strikers in football history - that spot-kick stop in Essex might not even make the top 10.

All of that comes having started his goalkeeping career a few months after his 14th birthday, having quit football two years earlier, with other hobbies more appealing at the time.

And those pastimes imply that Valdimarsson has always been good with his hands, with his fingertips initially put to use by moving bishops and knights around a board, before they were tipping balls around a post.

He reveals: “I started playing chess in the first grade. I remember I won a tournament in the first or second grade, in primary school.

“It started just from being in school; we would finish our studies and go and play chess.

“The pressure of chess isn’t the same as the pressure of a football game - I never got nervous when I played chess!

“I was playing football and handball alongside chess when I was very young. I quit football when I was 13 - I wasn’t a goalkeeper at that point - and played handball.

“It’s a lot of contact - and a lot of fighting! It’s completely different to football.

“I played in a midfield position so it’s not really similar to being a goalkeeper, to be honest. But some of the skills I used then I also use now.

“Throwing, for example: sometimes when I throw the ball in football, I throw it like I used to in handball, where you use your shoulder, rather than bowling it out.”

His route back into football was with local side Grótta, where his time as a handball player handily handed him an opportunity to put his pre-existing skills to good use.

Valdimarsson recalls: “I’m from a very small place in Iceland and there weren’t many players in the football team, so I just joined them, played a bit, and it was fun.

“I went in goal a few times, I enjoyed that - and I was quite good! The first team asked if I wanted to be their second goalkeeper, so I had to make a decision: do I quit handball to play football?

“It was a bit of a crossroads for me. But getting the opportunity to play for a first team, compared to the under-18s team in handball was what, ultimately, made my mind up.

“I could have been a professional handball player - but I’m glad I decided to become a footballer!”

He adds: “I was playing outfield until I was 15, which was quite late to start in goal - but it worked out, somehow!

“At first, I knew nothing about goalkeeping. My stepdad and the coach of the team called round for goalkeeping coaches, because there were none working for the team I played for.

“So, I went to meet some coaches alone, trained, worked really hard on the basic goalkeeping stuff, and then I just continued to do that to develop.

“Before training, maybe three times a week, I would go and meet the goalkeeping coach to train.”

And all that hard work led to him making his Grótta debut at the age of 15 in September 2017; having started his goalkeeping training in March of that year, he was chucked into the deep end just months later.

It was around the same time that one of his team-mates, Orri Óskarsson (now at Real Sociedad), was handed his debut at 13, a game in which he scored twice, having been brought on by the head coach, his father, Óskar Hrafn Þorvaldsson.

And the club’s focus on young, local talent was one of the key factors in Grótta producing what has been referred to as one of the most surprising seasons in Icelandic football history.

“Once we started the season in the third tier, everything changed. A lot of players left, we had a new coach, and pretty much all of our players came from Grótta,” Valdimarsson explains.

“I feel like I properly started that season, where I really started training and playing a lot. We did really well, we got promoted - and then we got promoted again! It was back-to-back promotions.

“Getting to the top division was really big for everyone and for the club as a whole - they had almost never been in the second division, so it was crazy.

“I think it was maybe too big of a step at that time, but it was still a great experience. It was different - we conceded quite a few more goals than the previous two seasons, which definitely didn’t feel as good!

"We got relegated from the top division in our first season after promotion, which is when I went to Elfsborg.”

Still just 20 but already with 84 appearances under his belt, a move east, nearly 5,000 miles across the Nordic region, to Sweden beckoned.

Valdimarsson says: “My agent sorted the trials. I went to Elfsborg and to another Swedish team, also as a good opportunity to see what it was like in professional football, because in Iceland it’s not professional.

“I spent five days in each, both teams were really happy with me, so I could just choose where I wanted to go. I just felt like Elfsborg was the right team for me.

“I had trained with them, and I just felt really comfortable right away, you just get that feeling. It was the same with Brentford - it just had the right vibe.”

He adds: “I went fully professional after signing for them and I learnt so much there.

“I played five games in the first season because the first-choice goalkeeper got a red card, and it went quite well. The next year, I played the second half of the season, the last 14 games.

“And then I got one proper season as the first-choice keeper - it was really good, we had a good team.

“We finished second and sold 10 players the summer after to bigger teams, which highlights that.”

“We finished second” doesn’t exactly tell the whole story of what happened during the 2023 Allsvenskan season.

Elfsborg, under the guidance of now-Aberdeen boss Jimmy Thelin, had an incredible campaign, which saw them top of the table heading into the final day.

And Valdimarsson, himself, also had a stellar year between the sticks: no goalkeeper in the division had a better save percentage (78 per cent), whilst he also topped the goalkeeping charts for most clean sheets.

He recalls: “It was just a great season for everyone. I played really well, which was helped by the fact that we were a defensive team, we didn’t have much possession; us and Malmö were completely different teams.”

As mentioned, Elfsborg were first heading into the final stages of the season, and it was Brentford legend Pontus Jansson’s Malmö that were just behind them in second.

On the penultimate weekend of the season, Malmö lost 4-2 at third-place Häcken and the title looked Elfsborg’s for the first time in 11 years.

But, somehow, the league leaders only mustered a draw at home to bottom-placed Degerfors, scoring a 95th-minute equaliser but failing to net an Agüero-style winner at the death.

On that second-to-last game of the campaign, Hákon admits: “That really messed with our heads. We played really badly that day - it was the pressure.”

So, it went down to the final day. Dubbed ‘The Final’ by Swedish media, Malmö deployed more security guards than at any game in the club’s history - all of whom were, eventually, very much needed.

Valdimarsson says: “It was a crazy coincidence that we played each other on the final day: we were first, three points ahead, they were second, but with the same goal difference as us. We knew that, if we lost, we’d lose the title. That game was essentially a cup final - it was huge.”

The supporters were inside the Swedbank Stadion 45 minutes before kick-off, setting a precedent for what sort of atmosphere they were going to create: loud, passionate and chaotic.

A yellow smoke bomb let off by the visiting supporters filled the air and disrupted the sea of light blue that the Malmö fans had created across the ground, as Valdimarsson and the other 21 players waited in the tunnel.

Flares continued to be lit at both ends which created problems for Valdimarsson (“the Malmö fans were right behind me and the smoke was coming into my penalty area, so I just had to try and stay focused and continue playing”), but also for the stadium, itself.

As the players disappeared down the tunnel at half-time with the score at 0-0, they had no idea that it would be another three-quarters of an hour before they would return.

Valdimarsson explains: “A fire alarm went off due to the flares and we didn’t know if the game was going to continue. Half-time ended up being almost 45 minutes.

“There were lots of stops in the game, it was quite bad - if you play in a game like that, you just want it to be a normal game.”

Both sides, eventually, came back out for the second half, trying to get back into the mindset that a game of that magnitude needed.

But it was the hosts whose minds were sharpest, as they won a penalty in the 57th minute, which was netted by Isaac Kiese Thelin, and turned out to be the only goal of the game. It was Malmö and Jansson who ended up lifting the trophy, with Valdimarsson heartbroken.

He says: “I had a good feeling about the penalty, I had the Elfsborg fans behind me, but I just didn’t save it.

“We had just lost the league. 20,000 people ran onto the pitch, and I quickly ran inside.

“After that, it was a long bus journey home, it was about four hours, and it was really quiet.

"But being involved in those games is valuable; there’s lots of pressure, which is always a good experience.”

And those high-pressure games have continued at international level, with Valdimarsson making his Iceland debut against Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal.

At the thought of that game in Lisbon, he smiles: "It was so nice for me, my family and my friends. It was a really good game to make my competitive debut. I played a few friendlies, but this was my first competitive game.

"Against Portugal, in a full stadium, we played really good as a team, I had a great game too, and I just want to continue doing that for my country.

"It's been fun to play for the national team and I try to enjoy the attention as much as possible.

"Before the game, in the tunnel, I saw [Ronaldo] and was just like... 'wow'. I had been following this guy since I was a kid. He was my favourite player as I was growing up and it was a really nice moment for me to play against him - and, most importantly, not let him score!”

Someone else who he kept out was Bayern Munich striker Harry Kane, something which he describes as a “a really great experience”.

A 1-0 win for Iceland at Wembley Stadium just before Euro 2024 saw Valdimarsson play 90 minutes against Kane and Co, which meant he became just the fifth goalkeeper to keep a clean sheet against the Three Lions forward across 53 games for club and country last season.

And his impressive performances for his country have been inspired by the Iceland team that notably reached the quarter-final of Euro 2016 - when they also beat England to progress.

Valdimarsson says: “When Iceland got to the quarter-final of Euro 2016, that was the time when I was really starting to play football.

“That is the best team that has ever played for Iceland - people obviously still talk now about how well they played at that Euros and how they qualified for the World Cup two years later.

“Some of them are still in the team now, so it’s really good to learn from those guys about how to play international football and how to play for Iceland, because everyone has to be on the same page.

“We’ve got a lot of young players stepping up and we were so close to going to Euro 2024, so I think it’s an exciting time, again, for the national team.”

Closing in on his one-year anniversary as a Brentford player, Valdimarsson is really enjoying his time at the club, working closely with no.1 Mark Flekken (“it’s great to have someone more experienced to train with, he helps me a lot, and I really like how calm he is with the ball at his feet, which is something I want to try and be like”), and living in west London.

But rather than talk about all of that, a more important question is posed: will we see the Viking Thunder Clap, made famous by the Icelandic national team, at Gtech Community Stadium?

Valdimarsson chuckles: “Maybe after my Premier League debut and a win.”