Valur
Also written as Valur Reykjavik.
The club
Valur were founded on 11 May 1911 in Reykjavik as a subdivision of KFUM, the Icelandic YMCA, and took the name Valur, the Icelandic word for gyrfalcon, later the same year. They are a multi-sport club with football, handball and basketball sections. The football ground is Hlidarendi, currently carrying the sponsored names N1-vollur and Vodafonevollurinn, capacity 1,524. The colours are red and white.
Recent seasons
Valur won their most recent Icelandic championship in 2020 and have not won it since. They finished second of twelve in the 2025 Besta deild karla. Positions and points for 2021 to 2024 were not confirmed individually from the sources read here.
The 2026 season, which runs to the calendar year, has been poor. In August 2026 Valur were fifth with 19 points from 16 matches, 6 wins, 1 draw and 9 defeats, 26 goals scored and 32 conceded. That is a losing record in a season in which they are also playing European football in August, which is the tension the club is currently living with.
Honours and landmarks
Twenty-three Icelandic league titles, second only to KR, the first of them in 1930 and the most recent in 2020. Valur have spent all but three seasons of their history in the Icelandic top flight. The club's most-cited attendance record is a European one: 18,243 watched Valur host Benfica in 1968, an Icelandic record for a football match.
Notable scorelines
Record win and record defeat were not established from the sources read here. The Benfica tie of 1968 is the historic reference, though its scorelines were not confirmed here either.
European record
Valur have entered European competition twenty times and have never got past the second round. That is the honest summary and it makes the current run notable: reaching a third qualifying round is at or beyond the club's historic ceiling.
The 2026/27 route began, on the published record read here, at the Conference League second qualifying round against HSK Zrinjski Mostar of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Valur won the home leg 1-0 at Hlidarendi on 23 July 2026 and drew 2-2 in Mostar on 30 July 2026, going through 3-2 on aggregate. No first qualifying round tie for Valur appears in the match record read here, so the second round looks to have been their entry point.
Quotes
The quotes below were published in Icelandic by Visir and are reproduced in the original with an English rendering marked as a translation.
- "Eg er mjog stoltur af frammistodu strakanna i kvold." - Chris Brazell, Valur head coach, to Visir, 6 August 2026. Translation: "I am very proud of the boys' performance tonight." https://www.visir.is/g/20262917798d/uppgjorid-valur-nordsjaelland-0-2-rodurinn-verdur-thungur-i-danmorku
- "Thetta hefdi verid god frammistada undir hvada kringumstaedum sem er." - Chris Brazell, Valur head coach, to Visir, 6 August 2026. Translation: "That would have been a good performance in any circumstances." https://www.visir.is/g/20262917798d/uppgjorid-valur-nordsjaelland-0-2-rodurinn-verdur-thungur-i-danmorku
- "Thad gekk svona nokkurn veginn upp sem vid vorum ad leggja upp med." - Holmar Orn Eyjolfsson, Valur captain, to Visir, 6 August 2026. Translation: "More or less what we set out to do came off." https://www.visir.is/g/20262917798d/uppgjorid-valur-nordsjaelland-0-2-rodurinn-verdur-thungur-i-danmorku
- "Vid thurfum ad vera skeinuhaettir i skyndisoknum." - Holmar Orn Eyjolfsson, Valur captain, on what is needed in the second leg, to Visir, 6 August 2026. Translation: "We have to be dangerous on the counter-attack." https://www.visir.is/g/20262917798d/uppgjorid-valur-nordsjaelland-0-2-rodurinn-verdur-thungur-i-danmorku
- "Thad er alveg oruggt ad einvigid er ekki buid." - Jens Fonsskov Olsen, FC Nordsjaelland head coach, to Visir, 6 August 2026. Translation: "It is quite certain that the tie is not over." https://www.visir.is/g/20262917798d/uppgjorid-valur-nordsjaelland-0-2-rodurinn-verdur-thungur-i-danmorku
Right now (2026/27)
The dugout situation needs stating carefully. Hermann Hreidarsson was appointed manager in late 2025, a move that caused a good deal of argument among Valur supporters, and has since departed. Chris Brazell, an Englishman and formerly a Norwich City youth coach, took interim charge and was the man named as Valur's manager in the Icelandic match reports of 6 August 2026. Transfermarkt lists Brazell's formal club role as assistant manager with a start date of 1 January 2026. The safest statement is that Brazell is the man taking the team and giving the post-match interviews. Valur are fifth in the Besta deild karla. No summer transfer detail was confirmed from the sources read here.
The European tie they are in now is the Conference League third qualifying round against FC Nordsjaelland of Denmark, and the first leg was lost at home. Valur lost 0-2 at Hlidarendi on Thursday 6 August 2026. The attendance was not confirmed from the sources read here; Visir described the atmosphere as decent but on the whole subdued. Villum Berthelsen scored in the 30th minute and Nicklas Rojkjaer added a penalty in the 78th. The second leg is in Farum on 13 August 2026. Both coaches described the performance as better than the scoreline; the Icelandic write-up's own summing-up was that the row will be a hard one in Denmark.
One correction worth recording, because two widely used feeds got it wrong: ESPN and a Flashscore round-up both listed this fixture as Nordsjaelland at home. Sky Sports, Visir and Morgunbladid all place it at Hlidarendi in Reykjavik with Valur as the home side, and Visir names the pitch. This dossier follows the Icelandic reports.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valur_(men%27s_football) https://www.visir.is/g/20262917798d/uppgjorid-valur-nordsjaelland-0-2-rodurinn-verdur-thungur-i-danmorku https://www.mbl.is/sport/efstadeild/2026/08/06/valur_nordsjaelland_stadan_er_0_2/ https://www.skysports.com/football/valur-reykjavik-vs-fc-nordsjaelland/577229 https://www.espn.com/soccer/team/results/_/id/6742/league/UEFA.EUROPA.CONF_QUAL/season/2026 https://www.transfermarkt.us/valur-reykjavik/mitarbeiter/verein/1033 https://www.pinkun.com/sport/interviews/26414120.former-city-youth-coach-brazell-makes-winning-european-start/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Besta_deild_karla https://www.flashscore.com/news/uefa-conference-league-26-27-third-qualifying-round-first-legs/nJTMsEhU/
Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.