FIRST TEAM
09/27/2011

Interview with Gylfi Sigurdsson

Gylfi Sigurdsson made his first appearance of the season against VfL Wolfsburg ten days or so ago, and completed his first 90 minutes against 1- FC Köln on Sunday, since suffering an injury in pre-season. Achtzehn99.de caught up with him to find out how it felt to be back playing, and why Icelandic is fast becoming the adopted native tongue in the small village of Dielheim.

Gylfi, Holger Stanislawski's style of football involves a lot of running. How have you found the workload in these last two matches, considering you were out injured?

After the game against Wolfsburg I was exhausted, but in Cologne I lasted the 90 minutes. In two or three weeks I'll be back to full fitness again, and hopefully produce some better performances than the one against Köln.

Last week your family came to visit. Did you manage to find time to show them around the region where you live?

Unfortunately I haven't had much time. But they're here for a few days yet. My brother and his two kids are also here, and they're all staying with me. My apartment is completely full, but it's great to have them all around me. Now I can finally enjoy my mother's cooking again. But I have to say my brother is also a talented chef. I could learn a lot from him actually (laughing).

Do your family follow 1899 games on TV in Iceland?

Yes, when they can. It's only the highlights that get shown on TV there. Sometimes you can get live games over the internet. But against Wolfsburg they were in the stadium supporting me, and my brother came to the Köln game too.

What do you think went wrong in the game against Köln? After Hoffenheim's last few games, that result was a surprise.

It's hard to say what went wrong exactly. But didn't set up as a team, and weren't able to create any chances or defend our goal properly. It was a disappointing day for us. But in the dressing room afterwards, everyone was dejected – you knew that the result and the performance had affected us and we weren't happy with it. We all knew that we have to improve for the next game.

Now you face record-holders FC Bayern Munich. After a defeat like that, now is a good time to be playing Bayern, right?

We will see. They're an outstanding team and they're in great form. But we're playing at home and we want to get back to winning ways. There's no reason why we can't take points off them.

After the game you will be joining up with the Iceland squad. It's still mathematically possible that Iceland will qualify for Euro 2012 next year, so the game against Portugal should be an interesting one.

That's right. There's no pressure on us, and we can play with freedom. Portugal are the team expected to make it to the Euros. I'm excited to be playing against Cristiano Ronaldo and Nani, but first there's Robben and Ribéry to look forward to.

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