Árni Gautur Arason

Árni Gautur Arason (born May 7, 1975) is an Icelandic Football (soccer), currently playing for the Norway side Odd Grenland.

Club career

He played for Rosenborg B.K. between January 1998 and December 2003, also making several UEFA Champions League appearances for the club. After leaving Rosenborg, he had a brief spell at Manchester City F.C. in the spring of 2004, serving as understudy to David James (footballer), but only made two FA Cup appearances for the club.

In the first of these, against Tottenham at White Hart Lane, City found themselves 3-0 down at half time after an abject first half performance, and down to 10 men after Joey Barton had been sent off at the half time whistle. Following a Sylvain Distin header early in the second half, City were 3-1 down when Spurs won a free kick about 25 yards out. Christian Ziege had already beaten Arason from a similar distance in the first half but this time Arason produced a stunning one handed tip onto the crossbar from a full stretch dive to his left, Gus Poyet could have headed the rebound into an open net but Arason scrambled back to his right to save this effort too. A goal here would arguably have killed the game off but after the brilliant double save City went on to win 4-3 in what has been described as one of the greatest FA Cup comebacks of all time. Arason's part in the historic win has never been forgotten by the City faithful.

He subsequently went on to join Vålerenga in the summer of 2004.

In November 30 2007, Arason's contract expired and he left Vålerenga. In March 2008 he joined South African club Thanda Royal Zulu on a short contract, before moving back to Norway joining Odd Grenland in the summer the same year.

International career

He made his debut in an August 1998 friendly match against Latvia national football team and is still a regular for the Iceland national football team, earning over 60 international caps since. He has not featured for the national team since leaving Norwegian club Vålerenga I.F. Fotball in 2007 until October 2008. But still he was on bench then in two matches.

Honours

With Rosenborg B.K.

- Norwegian Premier League Champion: Tippeligaen 2000, Tippeligaen 2001, Tippeligaen 2002
- Norwegian Football Cup Win: Norwegian men's football cup 1999

With Vålerenga

- Norwegian Premier League Champion: Tippeligaen 2005

Individual

He won the Kniksen award as the Norwegian league's goalkeeper of the year in Kniksen_award 2001 and Kniksen_award 2005.

Trivia

- Arason studied law in Iceland and is a lawyer.