Heimir Hallgrímsson: ‘In March, I will show the Irish players our plans for the World Cup’

None of the hoopla surrounding the recent revival of the Republic of Ireland is new to Heimir Hallgrímsson. The 58-year-old has already lived an ample footballing life.

He was co-manager when his native Iceland knocked England out of Euro 2016. That was a breakthrough for his country comparable to what Euro 88 was for Ireland. Two years later, Iceland frustrated Lionel Messi’s Argentina, drawing 1-1 in the opening match at the World Cup in Russia.

By then Hallgrímsson was the lone manager, having initially shared the role with Swedish coach Lars Lagerbäck. His unique story demands, after the euphoria of Budapest in November, an update.

The island of Heimaey, off Iceland’s south coast, was his home as a child. Its biggest volcano erupted at 1.55am on January 23rd, 1973. Hallgrímsson was five years old. He was six when the lava stopped spewing that July.

“I think I remember,” says Hallgrímsson. Don’t know if it is a memory or from seeing videos. The best thing was I should’ve been in school but we were moving around different houses in Iceland.”

The family home was gone? “Not my father’s. Luckily. But both my grandparents houses went under the lava.”

Did they rebuild? “No. My grandfather stayed in the capital.”

On November 17th, 2025, Hallgrímsson caught the first available flight from Dublin to Reykjavik before a three-hour spin to catch the ferry to Heimaey.

Ireland had just beaten Hungary 3-2 at the Puskas Arena. The FAI charter got them to Malahide for some late pints in Gibney’s but Hallgrímsson was keen to set foot on familiar terrain.

“Heimaey is one of the jewels of Iceland. The birds and surrounding sea life are amazing. Very green. It’s a small island. 4,500 people in the village. You need to put in an effort to go there. It is isolated in the winter. You can get in, but you might not get out for a few days.”

It was not lost on his neighbours and friends that, with Ireland, he was knee-deep in an adventure similar the one enjoyed by Iceland a decade ago.

“Funnily enough, a lot of Icelanders watch Ireland as if it is their team. They follow and celebrate.”

For one reason: the dentist who became a coach of his wife Iris Hallgrímsson’s ÍBV Vestmannaeyjar team before managing Iceland, Jamaica and now Ireland represents a compelling journey for his fellow islanders to follow and celebrate.

“I was a late developer. The smallest in my age group. At 17, I decided to stop playing and worked in a video rental store after school.”

Xtra-vision did not last long. ÍBV employed a Polish coach named Gregor Bielatowics, who changed the way Hallgrímsson viewed the game.

“As I had stopped playing the club asked me to be his assistant coach. For two years I was with him. Before Gregor football was just about winning. He was all about improving individuals, especially when he saw potential in a small player. That’s why I fell in love with coaching. I’ve done it ever since.”

He grew tall enough to have a brief career as a defender for ÍBV in the Icelandic top flight, and he coached their under-10s for 15 years.

As his dental practice took off on Heimaey, he continued to pursue his passion for developing talent.

“When I became a dentist, I was still coaching, even though my mother didn’t like me doing it almost for free, instead of paying back my student loans after six years of university.

“I owe her a lot,” he says. “I wish I had all her values because she was an amazing Christian woman.”

“Anyways, when I graduated as a dentist, I took over the women’s team. Iris was playing for them and they were struggling. She was a striker and I put her at centre back and she went on to play for the Iceland national team.”

What’s the difference between coaching boys and girls? “The women listen, so be careful what you are saying. It is more psychological than anything else. At half-time, you say ‘we must be better at this or that’. In the women’s dressingroom everyone thinks ‘he is talking about me’. The men think, ‘he is talking about someone else’. That is the difference, [women] take more in. You can challenge the boys more without it affecting them. You have to be smarter in what you are saying [to women players].”

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Think about Irish football’s greatest moments. A word or two will suffice. Giants Stadium. Genoa. Stuttgart. For Icelanders it is the city of Nice, where England were humbled and Roy Hodgson immediately resigned.

That night remains a haze but Hallgrímsson does remember the quarter-final and being outfoxed by France manager Didier Deschamps as the thunderclap, finally, went silent.

“The cleverness of Deschamps in that game. He gave us possession. We thought we’d be defending for 90 minutes. We had our highest possession and we lost 5-2.

“Tactically, it was so clever. We were playing the ball about. Looking really good. Boom. Counter attack. One-zero. Counterattack, two-zero. Counterattack, 3-0. It was 4-0 at half-time.”

What if the Czechs give Ireland the ball in Prague on March 26th? “No, I’m not going to fall for this again. It’s an example that even the better teams don’t need possession to win.”

Hallgrímsson really has seen it all. Even Cristiano Ronaldo’s meltdown at the Aviva Stadium last year was not the first time the superstar lost his cool against one of the Icelander’s team. After the 1-1 draw with Portugal at Euro 2016, Ronaldo ridiculed Iceland’s defensive approach, saying it showed a “small mentality”.

“That was his way to feel superior at that time. What fun is it if everyone plays the same way? The rich will always win.”

After seven years with his national team, Hallgrímsson and Iris moved to Doha to take up residency with Al-Arabi SC.

“It was an opportunity that does not come along often for an Icelandic dentist. Salaries I had not seen before in my life. It was a tough time, the Covid time. They’d been on a bad spiral but that’s probably the project I’ve been praised the most after leaving.

“But I was drained after three years. We went home for a summer. Just needed to go back to the island.”

Back to the dentist chair, until Jamaica came calling.

“There was something sexy about living in Jamaica. There is an amazing number of players that could play for Jamaica via the granny rule.”

It ended abruptly, following the Copa America in 2024, with the FAI keen for him to get started with Ireland.

“The resources in the federation were really limited. Pitches were really bad, infrastructure coming from Qatar was completely different. But the individual talent was ridiculous.

“In the end, I said to them, the players deserve a coach that can work in the environment. That is the best way I can put it. I knew they would qualify for the World Cup. That was pulling me. But two more years there would not have done me any good.

“It was chaotic,” he adds. “Limited in so many ways. There was a lot of things going on that I could not control.”

Does he still talk to Lagerbäck? “Yeah, all the time. He watches every game I coach. A really good football brain but a magical person which I am really lucky to have come across.”

How did the encounter come about? “Oh, that’s a story for you: [in 2012] there was a lot of talk of Roy Keane coming in. Gunnar Thor Gislason, the former president of the FA in Iceland, who was the CEO of Stoke, had spoken to him.

“In the end they hired Lars. We were 124th in the Fifa rankings. When I left we were 18th.”

The rise of Iceland remains one of the greatest achievements in international football. Hallgrímsson was pencilled in to replace Lagerbäck in 2014. Unlike Stephen Kenny with Ireland, he did not have it in writing from the association.

“The plan was to see if I could take over after Lars, but everyone was so happy that they wanted him to stay. Lars said: ‘Let’s be joint coaches. Share the load.’ That’s what he was like. It just worked.”

Hallgrímsson has tried to build the same working relationship with Ireland’s “assistant head coach” John O’Shea.

“John is a similar person to Lars. I have not come across anyone, in two years here, who does not like him. He is easy to work with. We share the load. Paddy McCarthy comes in [for camps from Crystal Palace] and he knows exactly what we expect of him. Same for everyone. I am not going to micromanage. This is your job. Do the best you can.”

Lagerbäck continually said Iceland would qualify for the World Cup. On arrival in Dublin, Hallgrímsson adapted his mentor’s line.

“You have to believe in what you are doing. For the next camp in March, I will show the Irish players our plans for the World Cup.”

He opens his laptop to reveal the daily outline for this summer’s tournament. From a new approach in May to the base camp in Fort Worth, Texas, everything is mapped out until the final on July 19th.

“I’ll be here at least until after the World Cup. The players know we believe in them. The FAI are investing in going to the US. That’s how it should be.”

Finally, we discuss last year’s miraculous turnaround. Hallgrímsson identified two reasons for the defeat to Armenia in Yerevan. Altitude and aggression.

His theory has him “scared” in advance of potential World Cup group games against South Korea in Guadalajara (1,570m above sea level) and Mexico at the Azteca (2,240m). The “worst performances,” he says, by Ireland teams since 2022 happened in Yerevan, twice, which is 1,100m above sea level, and last November the under-21s lost 4-0 to Andorra high up in the Pyrenees.

“It takes two weeks to acclimatise but that is logistically impossible as we have been assigned a base camp at sea level. When the oxygen levels lower, and it is impacting our performances, I am scared.”

What to do? “Some players are more effective than others at altitude. We can check the red blood cells.”

The second issue was more alarming, but Séamus Coleman’s return to the squad last October appeared to reset a group that had ceased trading off its traditional strength.

“Seamus’s superpower is he makes the players around him better. Long may that continue.”

Coleman possesses traits Hallgrímsson presumed every Irish player had.

“I had this presumption, when I came in, that there was one thing I didn’t need to change: Irish players will win their duels and work hard. But when we analysed the first games it was not true. We lost much more duels than we won. The other teams were harder-working than us in the Greece and England games.

“I didn’t know much about Irish football, but I had in my mind the Keanes and Duff. You knew what you were facing.”

Hallgrímsson said previously he wanted to discover a few “bastards”.

“Lots of courageous players playing with their hearts,” he clarifies. “That was something we needed to reinvent. The stats showed me this was not the case. Irish players used to win the 70-30 duels, but we were losing the 50-50 duels.

“Slowly, we have improved in this area. When the Czechs are saying we are a physical team, for me, that’s a compliment.”

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