Bjarni Eggerts Guðjónsson (born 26 February 1979) is an Icelandic former professional footballer, who was last manager of KR. He has played in Belgium, England and Germany and has two brothers who have also played professional football, Þórður and Jóhannes. All three played together at Genk. He is also the son of former footballer and now manager Guðjón Þórðarson.

Club career

Bjarni was born in Akranes. He began his career at his hometown club ÍA, before moving to English club

Newcastle United Newcastle United Football Club is an English professional football club, based in Newcastle upon Tyne, that plays in the Premier League – the top flight of English football. The club was founded in 1892 by the merger of Newcastle East End ...

in 1997 for £500,000. He failed to break into the first team at the club and left a year later for Belgian club Genk before returning to England in 2000 with

Stoke City Stoke City Football Club is a professional football club based in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, which competes in the . Founded as Stoke Ramblers in 1863, it changed its name to Stoke in 1878 and then to Stoke City in 1925 after Stoke ...

in a £250,000 signing joining up with his father Guðjón Þórðarson who was manager. He became a regular in the first team and made 53 appearances in the 2000–01 season however he was transfer listed at the end of the season as his father felt Bjarni was struggling to deal with being the son of the manager. No transfer away from the club was forthcoming and Bjarni stayed for the 2001–02 season and this time played 54 matches as Stoke gained promotion via the play-offs. Despite gaining promotion his father was sacked by the board. Bjarni stayed at Stoke and helped the club to avoid relegation before he joined his brother Þórður Guðjónsson at VfL Bochum on a free transfer. He struggled to cement a place in the first team at Bochum and was loaned out to Coventry City in 2004 where he excelled under the management of Eric Black. Coventry signed him on a free later that year however he struggled for game time under new manager Peter Reid and eventually fell out of favour. He was signed on a free by

Plymouth Argyle Plymouth Argyle Football Club is a professional football club based in the city of Plymouth, Devon, England. As of the 2021–22 season, the team are competing in League One, the third tier of English football. They have played at Home Park, ...

who he stayed with for two years and was a popular character, scoring once against Everton in the FA Cup, before joining ÍA again in 2006. In his second spell at ÍA he stayed for two years, until he was sold to KR in 2008.

International career

Bjarni made his debut for Iceland as a substitute for

Helgi Sigurðsson Helgi Sigurðsson (born 17 September 1974) is an Icelandic former professional footballer and manager of ÍBV. A forward, he played for clubs in Iceland, Germany, Norway, Greece, and Denmark and represented Iceland at international level. C ...

in a friendly match against Slovakia in April 1997 and has been capped 19 more times since, scoring once against Liechtenstein in a

World Cup qualifier The FIFA World Cup qualification is a competitive match that a national association football team takes in order to qualify for one of the available berths at the final tournament of the (men's) FIFA World Cup. Qualifying tournaments are hel ...

in 1997, as well as captaining his side in a 2008 fixture.

Career statistics

Club

International

Honours

ÍA * Úrvalsdeild:

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is O. J. Simpson murder case, acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the 1994, year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The ...

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...

* Icelandic Cup: 1996 * Icelandic League Cup:

Genk * Belgian First Division: 1998–99 Stoke City * Football League Trophy:

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

* Football League Second Division play-off final:

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Gudjonsson, Bjarni 1979 births Living people

Bjarni Gudjonsson Bjarni is an Icelandic language, Icelandic male given name and may refer to: *Bjarni Ármannsson resigned as CEO of Glitnir (formerly Íslandsbanki) in May 2007 *Bjarni Ólafur Eiríksson (born 1982), footballer (defender) from Iceland *Bjarni B ...

Association football midfielders

Newcastle United F.C. players K.R.C. Genk players Stoke City F.C. players VfL Bochum players Coventry City F.C. players Plymouth Argyle F.C. players Bundesliga players English Football League players

Icelandic football managers

Icelandic expatriate sportspeople in England Expatriate footballers in England Icelandic expatriate sportspeople in Belgium Expatriate footballers in Belgium Icelandic expatriate sportspeople in Germany Expatriate footballers in Germany