A box full of memories: The inspiring journey of FCB captain Glódís Perla Viggósdóttir

There are mementos that are more valuable than any trophy. And there are stories that begin so inconspicuously that they almost get overlooked. For Glódís Perla Viggósdóttir, captain of FC Bayern Women, it's perhaps a pair of well-worn football boots. They're not golden, not signed, not new. And yet they tell more about her journey than any medal. The boots, once the property of the neighbours, were actually destined for the rubbish bin. It was her father who discovered them on the way to the skip and decided: "No, my daughter can still use them." And so they became Glódís' first football boots, her ticket to a world that would forever stay with her.

They ended up on the feet of an eight-year-old girl whose everyday life had previously been characterised by music and strumming a guitar. Sport hardly played a role in her family in her early childhood. But many girls played football at her school, so one day Glódís simply joined in. Without any ambition or great expectations. A spontaneous afternoon, nothing more. But when she stopped the ball for the first time and ran across the pitch, she felt something stronger than anything she'd ever known before. "I fell in love with football pretty quickly," she recalls.

A Christmas evening and a box full of memories

On a Christmas evening last year, Glódís, now 29 years old, opened a small cardboard box belonging to her father. Inside were the old boots, which had been carefully stored. She hadn't even realised her father had kept them. On the lid, in his handwriting, were the words: 'GPV football boots'. Not a gift as such, and yet something that touched her deeply. In this box lay a part of her history, made visible in boots that had found their way to her by chance.

A childhood with many paths

Glódís was not a child who knew early on which path she wanted to take. Born in the Icelandic town of Kópavogur - literally: ‘little bay of seal pups’, she tried out lots of things, including judo: the smell of the mats, the cold of the hall, the tension just before the fights. She won, learnt not to be fazed and developed a feel for her body and balance skills that would later become crucial in football. At the same time, she also played handball intensively and successfully for years. She played football too because everyone else played. At some point, she had to decide between her two passions, handball and football. "I always had a bit more love for football," she says today. This choice determined her path.

Between lecture theatres and away trips

Her career began at a very early age, at Breiðablik Kópavogur in her homeland and later at senior youth level at HK Kópavogur, where she gained her first experience as a teenager. In 2011, she moved to Denmark to join Horsens SIK, her first time abroad and her first proper contract. She scored 14 goals in 21 games that season. That same year, she returned to the Icelandic top flight, signing for Stjarnan Garðabær and making her Champions League debut there in 2012 at the age of just 16. That was followed by the years in Sweden starting in 2015, first at Eskilstuna United, then at FC Rosengård.

In addition to that early career in sport, Glódís decided to start another chapter. She enrolled in psychology and completed her bachelor's degree. For three years, she commuted between lecture theatres and training grounds, studying on the team bus, doing homework and juggling appointments that were rarely of interest to each other. She received her certificate the day after scoring two goals for Iceland in the 2019 World Cup qualifier against Slovenia.

Her parents supported her out of conviction, but also out of a quiet protective instinct, because women's football did not yet offer the structures that seem self-evident today. "I had to be very organised during those years," she later said. And she did indeed develop the discipline during those years that is still noticeable today: the clarity with which she talks about games, the calm she exudes on the pitch. After completing her bachelor's degree, she also trained as a personal trainer, purely out of interest: To understand how the body works, how to regenerate and build up strength. Knowledge that has stayed with her to this day.

The step up to Munich

Glódís played in Sweden for six years, won trophies, became a reliable figure in the Damallsvenskan and found a certain sense of calm there. But at some point she realised that this calm was deceptive: she had grown, become stronger and was ready for more. When FC Bayern approached her, she immediately recalled a Champions League match with Rosengård in Munich: the Campus, the power and dimension of this club. The offer felt like a door to a new world. "It was a step out of my comfort zone," she says today.

She quickly found a routine in Munich and the team became a second family: serious in training, warm in how they treated each other. Glódís became a top performer and later captain. She experienced the increasing professionalisation of women's football, growing stadiums and rising expectations. She was there when the Munich women played in the Allianz Arena for the first time, against the opponents they now face again: Paris Saint-Germain.

Nights in Paris: chaos, character and heart

She's already played against PSG four times with FCB, with each match striking its own tone. She particularly remembers the 1-0 away win in the 2023/24 season, when Bayern won the game with controlled authority. Right after that, she recalls the infamous ‘Coronavirus game’ in 2021/22, a trip with half a squad, an improvised line-up and 120 minutes of battling. A clash that showed that character and team spirit sometimes count more than goals.

And this season? The Parc des Princes is calling again. PSG are pointless so far, hungry, the stadium will be loud. But Glódís talks about it with the same calm, Nordic composure she exudes on the pitch: "PSG will go into the game very aggressively. It's the Champions League and we're aware of their qualities. As a team, we’ll have to deliver an absolute top performance. PSG will try to put us under pressure right from the start. But we'll be prepared."

Learning from setbacks

The start to this Champions League campaign was a more than bumpy one. After the 7-1 defeat in Barcelona, the team were briefly shaken. "We were really disappointed," she says, "but we turned it into something useful." The team analysed, learned, grew and then won eight times in a row. Two last-minute victories against Juventus and reigning Champions League winners Arsenal set the tone. Glódís herself scored the winner in the 3-2 against the Gunners, "the most important goal I've scored since I've been here". These were moments that showed how setbacks can lead to development, strength and having confidence in yourself. "You can't always control the result, but you can always learn something."

With six points after nine games, Bayern are currently eighth in the league, just one point behind fourth place, which would see them qualify directly for the quarter-finals. In Paris, they will have the chance to close that gap. Viggósdóttir will pursue this path, this goal, with absolute concentration and passion, as always. And in Iceland, her father will probably be sitting in front of the television with his fingers crossed, as he has done since the day he first packed away his daughter's first football boots, which had become too small. Perhaps the small cardboard box with the old boots will be somewhere nearby. As a silent witness to a long journey, having once been rescued from the rubbish bin.

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