Second straight title for Valur
Monday, September 17, 2007
Article summary
Valur have qualified for the 2008/09 UEFA Women's Cup after retaining their Icelandic championship title and dropping just two points all season.
Article body
Valur Reykjavík will go into their tough UEFA Women's Cup second qualifying round group in good heart after successfully defending the Icelandic title.
Record haul
A 10-0 win against KA/Thór wrapped up the championship, with Valur only dropping two points in 16 games, scoring 88 goals and conceding seven. Margrét Lára Vidarsdóttir, who returned to Valur at the start of the year after a short spell in Germany, broke her own record with 38 of those goals including a hat-trick in the final match, finishing top scorer for the fourth season in a row.
KR pipped
KR Reykjavík were neck and neck with Valur all season, having drawn their first game 1-1, but the eventual champions beat their neighbours 4-2 in the penultimate match of the season to effectively seal the championship as it left them three points clear with a vastly superior goal difference. It was in that game that Vidarsdóttir secured her new record.
Vidarsdóttir delight
"My aim for a season is to score 20 goals, anything more is just a bonus," said Vidarsdóttir, who also secured Iceland's 1-0 UEFA WOMEN'S EURO 2009™ defeat of France in June. "The game against KR was in fact the real final game so we celebrated little bit after winning it but it was important to win his game convincingly. We showed we are the best team in Iceland."
European challenge
It will be tougher from 11-16 October when Valur compete in UEFA Women's Cup hoping to match the quarter-final run of their debut in 2005/06. However to get there they must finish in the top two of Group B3, involving two-time winners 1. FFC Frankfurt, Everton LFC and hosts KFC Rapide Wezemaal of Belgium. Vidarsdóttir said: "Now we can start looking at the teams we are meeting in the UEFA competition and find their weaknesses, even though there are probably not many. It is very exciting for us to take part and meet these big teams, a good challange to show Icelandic women football is getting better." And, of course, their 2007 title means Valur will be back in Europe in 2008/09.
