Stefán Ingi Sigurdarson is certainly going to be a player to watch during this seasons Challenger Pro League season. Newly promoted Patro Eisden snapped up the tall Icelandic forward for an undisclosed fee from Breidablik this summer, hot off his incredible start to the Besta Deild 2023. In 12 league games, the striker has already scored 10 games. He also scored twice during Champions League qualification, against SP Tre Penne and Buducnost Podgorica. The 22-year-old has already made his presence known for the side, coming off the bench to score as they beat Deinze 3-1 in their opening game.
Sigurdarson is by no means a one season wonder. During the 2022 campaign he was on loan at HK Kópavogur, where he grabbed 10 goals in 14 games for the team in red and white. These came in the second tier of Icelandic football, but the striker has already shown this year that he can take the step up. Now, all eyes will be on whether he can bring the goalscoring with him to Belgium. He leaves Breidablik with 18 goals and five assists in 28 games.
In order to get to know more about Patro’s Icelandic forward, we reached out to Icelandic football experts Joe Gould and Tryggvi Kristjánsson of the excellent Besta League Podcast. The duo gave us the lowdown on Sigurdarson:
‘Stefan Ingi had a meteoric rise over the past year or so. He’s a big, tall striker and a very smart player. He tends to have good positioning and reads the game well, able to run off defenders to create space and put himself in good positions to get quite a few “poacher” goals. He scored a hattrick against Fram this year with Breiðablik, which contributed to his 10 goals on the season before heading to Belgium (plus two more in Champions League qualification). He can pop up with a goal seemingly at any time and can be a handful for defenders. He made the team of the season at HK last year, even though he only played 12 games with them after coming in August. There are a lot of eyes on him to see how he gets on in Belgium. He’s still young and no doubt if he can take Patro Eisden into the first division, a call to the national team is not far behind. Breiðablik have struggled to replace him this summer, which is a testament to his talent’.
Every striker loves a debut goal, and it was clear that the 22-year-old is not shy of confidence. Plenty of CPL defences will know about him by the end of this season.
