Júlíus Traustason DL DOB: 27/10/1990
I've only just joined Mídas this year after playing regularly for Kari in the 3. deild, but after 4 games in the 4. deild C I am certainly not regretting my decision! Things have just gone great so far. As an amateur at Kari, I signed on a free transfer, and the Mídas fans, having never seen their team above this level in the 4 years they've been playing football, are understandably delighted. The 4. deild has now been running for 12 games, or in some teams' case, 13, and that means there is only 4 left, and I hope to play in each one as we look to go up.
You see, my other job is an engineer. I worked in Akranes, where Kari are based, before, but my work needed me to move to Reykjavik. So I set about finding a team in Reykjavik and then I just found Mídas really. The manager, Sverrir Friðfinnsson, is interesting and quite a pleasant guy to work with. I don't think he has another job because he's made quite a little bit of money for now and lives off of that, so he has time on his hands which is a real benefit to the team.
My first match was against Vatnallijur, in Kópavogur, just south of Reykjavik. The captain, Jón Örvar Jóhannsson, gave me a fixture list and it showed last time against this team was a 0-0 draw at home on the opening day, so naturally we were pretty confident as we began the second half of our 16 match season. This time it went even better. I got the man of the match award on my debut, which was obviously great on a personal level, but we won 1-0, and it was Helgi Gíslason, a very nice person, who scored, with a right footed drive. And, to make it even sweeter, I played the pass for him to run onto that led to the goal. So that was obviously great. And then there was two weeks off for the next match.
Sadly, as amateurs, we don't have much time to train, and so the break didn't help us improve too much. If the next performance was anything to go by we went a little backwards, as we drew at home to Ísbjörninn. That was disappointing. We felt we should have won and we defended well, as they got no shots away. The only real incident of any note was a late booking, for me, when I barged over some guy called Árnasson on the other team. That was a poor game for me though. I was keen to play well after my first match and that just didn't go well.
At least for the next match we could say we had made a little progress. Admittedly, we had deserved to lose, but we drew 0-0, at home again, to Elliði. I looked back at the fixture list and found it had been Mídas' first loss of the season last time - in a 4-1 rout. This time we did manage a goal again, in the last few minutes, but it was disallowed, and it seemed to be the correct decision from the linesman. Helgi Gíslason had played a cross into the box that was headed down into the 6 yard box, where the midfielder Hartmann Heimisson was lurking to volley in. It didn't count, of course, meaning that we drew 0-0, which was alright. That meant that we were still in 5th, where we had been since the game before I joined Mídas. But our next game was a serious test and we knew it.
That next game was against Hvíti ridarinn, or 'The White Knight'. The problem was that they had been on top of the 4. deild since the 4th matchday. They were just 3 points ahead of us, though, and we had a game in hand, so with a big win we could actually go top of the table, and no one saw that coming. The thing is that even if we won our next 3 we could still miss out, if we lost the last two. Whilst the league leaders Hvíti had 18 points, with 5 wins, 3 draws and 4 losses, they were just 5 points off the bottom, occupied by Vatnallijur. Either way, a win was important as a loss could send us down to 8th out of 9 - and if Vatnallijur won, they would leapfrog us though that would leave someone on 14 points, so we wouldn't have to worry about finishing bottom. Fortunately we wouldn't have to worry about 8th place either as they lost and we scored our only shot on target to beat Hvíti 1-0. It was Arnar Por Harðason, who had joined just after me, from Álftanes in the 4. deild A. It was his second game and he rounded the keeper for his first goal which put us behind Hvíti merely on goal difference. Our next four games are against Ymir, Ármann, Léttir and Einherji, and before my arrival Mídas beat both Ármann and Léttir despite a 2-0 loss to Einherji. This time it could lead to the title if we won any of those games. And with only 2 defeats in the league it is likely we could top the division.
That is, not the 4. deild entirely, but the 4. deild C. The top two sides from each of the 3 groups enter a playoff to decide which 2 will play in the 3. deild next year. And I'm hoping to play at Kari's home once again next year. But work will have to come first.
