- The Icelandic coach is 56 years old, a former footballer and an active dentist.
- He led Iceland to its first FIFA World Cup appearance.
Jamaica arrives at CONMEBOL Copa America USA 2024™ with prior experience in the tournament, as this will be the country’s third participation since 2015. Their coach, Icelander Heimir Hallgrímsson, is the fourth European to take charge of the team in the country's post-independence era.
At the helm of the Reggae Boyz since September 2022, Halgrímsson has considerable coaching experience, having started coaching at an age when many footballers are still only playing football.
Before his 30th birthday, the then-defender agreed to coach Höttur's women's team, leading the team to promotion to the national topflight while still playing for the club’s men's team.
The experience only lasted until 1993, as he would return to his hometown of Vestmannaeyjar for a second stint with ÍBV, a traditional Icelandic club. Afterwards, he continued to play for Smástund and the club that resulted from its merger with another institution, KFS, while practicing his profession as a dentist for the local community. His life took a turn in 1999 when he was invited to coach the ÍBV women's team, a position he held until 2001.
Between consulting with patients as a dentist and continuing his playing career, Hallgrímsson coached the ÍBV men's team on an interim basis (in 2002), returned to work with the women's team (2003 and 2004) and was finally invited back to coach the men's team in 2006, at the end of his time as a footballer. He oversaw IBV until 2011, leading the team to the top division of national football, keeping the club in Iceland's first division, and achieving two consecutive qualifications for the UEFA Europa League.
The Icelandic national team, which already had players in important leagues around the world, called on the IBV coach for an assistant role to Lars Lagerbäck in 2011. Two years later, after the defeat in the 2014 World Cup qualifying play-offs, Hallgrímsson signed a new contract as co-coach alongside Lagerbäck, and in 2016 he became the sole manager of the Nordic team. The idea worked, and Iceland qualified for its first-ever FIFA World Cup in 2018 and even finished a historic 8th place at Euro 2016.
The coach left the national team after the World Cup in Russia, and a few months later joined Al-Arabi, from Qatar, the first challenge away from his homeland. He stayed in Qatar until 2021 and, a few months later, the Icelander would return to a national team, taking on the mission of taking a good generation of Jamaican players to a new level. Success has already been seen on the pitch, with a third place in the recent CONCACAF Nations League, and a guaranteed spot in this CONMEBOL Copa America™.
Off the pitch, Hallgrímsson seeks to bring a bit of Icelandic culture and philosophy based on building the collective strength as a basis for a winning team. More than that, it reinforces the need to adapt to the players they have, and for each player to understand their best qualities.
"If we try to do everything like the French or the English do, we could only be a poorly made replica of each of them. So we must find areas where we can be stronger, try to improve those aspects and not worry so much about what we won't be able to dominate," the Icelander said as quoted by Forbes magazine.
With a unique profile and a fascinating trajectory in football, Heimir Hallgrímsson leads Jamaica who dreams of winning their first points as a participant in the oldest national team tournament in world football.
