Genoa midfielder Albert Gudmundsson revealed he always wanted to play in Serie A as his great-grandfather also played in the league at one point. The Icelandic international gave a lengthy interview to La Gazzetta dello Sport where he discussed adapting to Serie A, his love for Genoa and why Barcelona are his favourite team because of Lionel Messi:
Albert Gudmundsson, confess your true nature: you are an imp in human form.
(laughter) ‘Maybe, it could be. In my country there are children’s stories where these figures are present, but I didn’t grow up with them. I preferred superheroes: Batman, Spider-Man… Yes, on the pitch I try to ‘blend in’ to find spaces, times and ways to attack. Many footballers are too static. My skill lies in trying to do something different. I take advantage of the freedom that Gilardino, my coach, gives me.
Of the Icelanders we have the idea of the classic northern European people: framed, schematic. Does your imaginative football represent an exception, or is our idea wrong from the start?
“I don’t think the idea you have of Icelanders is wrong. I am not a good example of the typical Icelander (laughs). My people are not as serious as you might think, in the sense that they don’t take themselves too seriously. But it’s difficult for me to go out of my comfort zone. My parents are like that, and I thank them because they gave me a sense of boundaries. But I have tried to understand what lies beyond that limit. I tried to go outside the box, outside the penalty area. That is, outside that area where my points of reference and my certainties reside’.
And what did you find, outside your comfort zone ?
‘It is important to challenge yourself, to keep putting yourself out there. For example: when I was a child I was afraid of heights, and I still am, but that’s why two years ago I decided to jump with a parachute. I shit in my pants, I shit my pants, but I jumped. I am a professional footballer and I know my duties: work hard, eat and rest well. But I’m also someone who chases adrenalin. I need emotions. However, if we talk about football, things are a bit different. We Icelanders are less strict than it seems. Until 10-15 years ago, the boys almost only played outdoors, so in winter, in the cold and under the snow. So, yes, ours was mainly combat football. Then many indoor facilities were built and a new generation of footballers was able to work on technique: ball control, precision passing, dribbling’.
At 26, you already have two children: are you more of a father or a playmate with them?
“The boy is 3 years old, the girl 6 months. The most important thing is to show them unconditional love. Then it’s all a question of balance between discipline and play: when it’s time for dinner or bedtime, there’s no negotiation’.
What made you say yes to Genoa more than a year and a half ago? The ambition of a more competitive league than the Dutch one, where you played for Az? The financial offer? Or the thought that your maternal great-grandfather, Albert too, who played for AC Milan between 1948 and 1949, had passed through Italy?
“The call from Genoa came on the last day of the winter market, so I didn’t have much time to think about it. My desire has always been to measure myself in Serie A, Premier League or La Liga. Genoa’s offer was a good one. They asked me to help save the team. We didn’t make it, but I wanted to stay even in Serie B because by then I felt part of the group and so I also felt the responsibility to help the club get back up’.
Have you ever heard of that great-grandfather?
“My mother mostly told me about him. My whole family is in football: maternal grandfather, father and mother were all professional footballers. My parents even made it to the national team. It’s clear that they influenced my decision to play football. I grew up following my father in the locker room of his team. In Iceland there were more permissive rules in that sense… I also like basketball a lot, I still play it when I go home. My idol was Allen Iverson, so talented and imaginative. At some point I had to choose, and I chose football because I wasn’t as tall and because dad himself told me I was better with my feet than with my hands’.
Did you expect this almost immediate acclimatisation to Italian football and the city?
‘I had already been on holiday in Italy, so I knew that the climate is ideal, the food is good and the people are happy, but I didn’t expect to get used to everything so quickly. But when a player plays well he is happy and everything around him looks even better. Italian football? Yes, it is very tactical, but not as tactical as what I found in Holland. I can only make comparisons with games played with my national team and in the Eredivisie, and I don’t find all these differences. It’s true that to give my best I need to move freely around the pitch but, as I said, here at Genoa I am allowed to, so I don’t find your league as complicated as you might think.
In this year and a half in Genoa, how have you become Italian? Have you learnt to gesticulate, do you make more noise than before, do you honk in the car and tell other drivers to fuck off?
(laughs) ‘You Italian drivers speed and are crazy, I go slow and am calm. I like your culture, I like the fact that you know how to laugh at yourselves, but you have a lot of strange habits: for example, when you say something is done right away and instead you wait to the next month. Or the time of appointments: you schedule for one hour, you arrive the hour after’.
Why did you decide to live in the city centre?
‘I was born in the centre of Reykjavik, moved to Amsterdam when I was 16: I am used to big cities’.
Again, is the ability to adapt a characteristic of yours or a peculiarity of Icelanders?
‘It is my ability to get along well with people wherever I am, and the result of having left home very early’.
What is dribbling for you?
“Along with shooting and being able to find an open teammate, it’s one of my main qualities. And it’s probably the thing I enjoy the most. I have been practising it since I was a child, when, regardless of the weather, I would spend six or seven hours a day on the pitch. Dribbling is something that is in my blood.
You have been compared to Dybala precisely because of your dribbling: does the comparision fit?
“It fits. We both wear our socks down.
As a child, and even now, is there a favourite team?
“Barcelona. I fell in love with it watching Messi’.
Gilardino was a great centre forward: is he teaching you to score more goals?
“He hammered me a lot last year, now we are refining the work. Little pieces of advice that I apply on the pitch and I notice that they are always right. For example, with AC Milan he warned me that I would always have a defender on my ass and so he told me to move in a zig zag, diagonally. He was right. We lost, but we annoyed him.
What do you and Retegui lack to reach a top club?
‘Mateo needed to play in Europe, I need to help the team with more goals and assists’.
Where did the passion for fashion come from?
“I liked watching the style of David Beckham and Allen Iverson. They followed their own way, I do the same. I don’t care about the judgement of others. If I see, if I like, I wear”.
