So a wee preview of tomorrow evenings Champions League 1st Qualifying round opponents Knattspyrnufélag Reykjavíkuror or KR Reykjavik for short.
Based in the wealthy Vesturbær district of the Icelandic capital of Reykjavík they are the oldest club in the country and it goes without saying the most successful with last seasons title the 27th league championship they’ve won added to which they’ve also captured 14 National Cups, 8 League Cups, and 6 Super Cup in their illustrious history.
Their manager is Rúnar Kristinsson who is in his second spell at the helm of the club.
He turned out for the national team a record 104 times and played for Reykjavik for eight years before having spells abroad in Sweden, Norway and Belgium.
After retiring he became a coach and manged KR previously between 2010-2014 delivering seven trophies before departing to manage his other former teams Lillestrøm SK in Norway and the now defunct Belgian side Lokeren.
With his hometown team struggling having not won a league title since his departure and their historic rivals Valur winning back to back league championships in recent years Kristinsson once again restored the countries biggest club to pre-eminence as they took the 2019 league championship suffering only two losses in a 22 game campaign and winning via a 14 points margin from second placed Breiðablik.
That was back in September and of course this seasons league which was due to start in April – and end next month – was curtailed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
It eventually started over two months late on the 13th of June and is due to complete in late October.
Reykjavik currently sit second in the league after eight games with five wins, two draws and one loss.
During that spell they’ve only hit the net thirteen times whilst conceding seven so issues at both ends of the pitch it would seem.
Their captain is 35-year-old veteran Óskar Örn Hauksson who has nearly 300 appearances for the champions and over 70 goals from midfield as a well as a few caps for the national team.
Vice captain Pálmi Rafn Pálmason is probably the one to watch.
Also 35 he has 18 caps for Iceland and has scored 70 goals in 298 career club appearances which has included spells in the Norwegian top flight with Stabæk and Lillestrøm SK where he was a regular goal scorer from midfield.
Big striker Kristján Flóki Finnbogason stands 6’3 and has decent pedigree with 32 goals in 123 games across his career and six caps for the national team with one goal though he limped off during a 2-1 defeat to FH Hafnarfjaroar last week and is now doubtful to even make the bench.
The 6’1 tall Danish forward Kennie Chopart is likely to be his replacement.
It’s probably of no surprise that KR have no real European history to speak of.
This is the fourth time they’ve met Scottish opposition in Europe having been trounced 14-1 on aggregate by Aberdeen back in 1967 in the first round of the old Cup Winners Cup and then losing out 2-1 on aggregate to Kilmarnock in the 1999/2000 UEFA Cup preliminary round.
They met us back in 2014 which was the last time they played in the Champions League qualifiers going down 5-0 on aggregate with a second away league 4-0 defeat at Murrayfield sealing their fate.
From 169 European ties they’ve only ever won 18 with their biggest scalp being home and away wins over Dinamo Bucharest in the UEFA Cup back in 1997.
Safe to say then we’ll be overwhelming favourites tomorrow night especially with home advantage and tired legs won’t be an excuse either thanks to a certain Mr Boli Bolingoli as we haven’t played since a week ago yesterday.
There’s also no injures to report either.
Any win will do as is the case with any one off game – and all the qualifiers up until the play off round will be one off – but of course we’ll hope for an energetic display and hopefully an early goal to ease the nerves against a team who are certain to sit in and punt it long to one of their towering centre forwards – depending on which one is fit – who hopefully Christopher Jullien and Kris Ajer can deal with a lot better than they did with Kilmarnock’s Kabamba during their last run out.
A much sterner test awaits in the form of either Hungarian Champions Ferencváros and Swedish title holders Djurgårdens IF who play the following night in Hungary for the right to meet either us or Reykjavík in round two .
But we can focus on that once we take care of business tomorrow evening.
Anything else other than a win would be quite simply a complete and utter disaster.
We’ve played teams from Iceland six times in European competition recording six wins, scoring 20 goals and conceding only one so there really are no excuses.
Here’s a reminder of what happened the last time we played them:
....Always A Tim! 