EPL: Can the Icemen deliver?

Premier League fans — and certainly Chelsea supporters — will remember the classy contribution from Iceland striker Eidur Gudjohnsen.

In his six year spell from 2000-2006 at Stamford Bridge the blonde frontman won the league twice, as well as the FA Cup.

He didn’t do too bad at Barcelona, either, collecting a La Liga title and a Champions League winner’s medal.

Today, though — at 3pm Bermuda time — he will play probably the most important game of his career. 

Now 35, Gudjohnsen and the Iceland team stand a two-legged playoff win against Croatia away from qualifying for the World Cup for the first time.

If they do overcome Croatia, they will also become the smallest population — just 300,000 — to reach the finals.

This context makes today’s game in Iceland the most interesting of the playoffs — for neutrals, at least — and the home side can bank on support from those who love a good underdog story.

“It feels great,” Gudjohnsen said in an interview with The Guardian.

“I think obviously we are aware of the enthusiasm of all the people at home. It’s like people are counting down to Christmas. 

“It’s an amazing atmosphere. It’s something completely new for everyone. 

“We’ve already achieved something that’s never been achieved before for the Icelandic national team and we’re the first team to have ever gone into the play-offs as the sixth seeds in the group. 

“It’s already been an amazing achievement but it could be so much better.

“I had my first game in 1996 and it’s an atmosphere now that I’ve never seen in my time with the national team. 

“I’ve never known people so excited. We’ve always had good spells or had a result which raised a few eyebrows or we came up with a surprise here or there but we’ve never actually managed to raise the expectations of the people so much as we have done now, because not only did we have some good results, we did it time and time again. 

“Games that we were expected to win, we did and it’s taken us where we are now. 

“A generation of players that have come through now who are very good. When they were at Under-21 level, they went all the way to the European Championships. 

“We’ve got a group of players playing at a higher level at the same time while in the past we’ve always had some good players but never in the same generation.” n