adminSTOCKHOLM. — Football-playing mothers will figure in this summer’s Euros like never before, with enough mums across the teams to form their own first XI and a handful of substitutes.
Iceland’s line-up includes the most mothers, with five in total.
That explains why, during their last competitive meet-up for World Cup qualifiers in April, the talk at one table turned to babies.
“I remember we were about six (players) sitting with a coffee and just talking about our birth experiences,” the newest mum in the squad, midfielder Sara Bjork Gunnarsdottir, tells BBC Sport.
Having given birth to her son in November and with her sights set on a comeback in time for the Euros, the 31-year-old record caps holder now looks back on that chat as an important one.
“When you have role models playing and at a good level, having a baby and coming back, still on the national team, that did a lot for me,” she says.
“We all go through our own experience, but to know they did it, it was inspiring for me and it still is, and it should be inspiring for all other women.”
Of seven mothers aiming to make Iceland coach Thorsteinn Halldorsson’s Euro squad, West Ham midfielder Dagny Brynjarsdottir, veteran defender Sif Atladottir, goalkeeper Sandra Sigurdardottir and her Valur team mate Elisa Vidarsdottir made the cut.
As did Gunnarsdottir, who had ended her season with minutes under her belt for club and country, signing off the campaign with Lyon as a Champions League and French league title winner. For Brynjarsdottir, who describes her comeback from the birth of her son Brynjar in 2018 as “the hardest thing I’ve done”, it was a return that two-time Icelandic sportsperson of the year Gunnarsdottir had to battle to make happen.
First there were months of fitness training with a specialist coach in Iceland to stay in shape during her pregnancy; then similarly targeted exercises at Lyon as she worked her way back.
“I had doubts,” Gunnarsdottir admits. “It’s my first time getting pregnant and I don’t know my body that way. I’ve done my anterior cruciate ligament and another injury, you know the steps, how you’re going to feel, but with pregnancy you don’t know how your body is going to react.”
By March, she was fit enough to return to the pitch for 45 minutes away to Dijon.
“I remember in the middle of the game I just said to myself ‘it feels so good’,” she recalls. — BBC Sport.
Mathew Masinge
Online Reporter