Portland Thorns midfielder Dagny Brynjarsdottir has been called into the Iceland women’s national team roster for an upcoming four-team tournament. The tournament will run from October 17th to October 25th in China. The other three teams competing will be China, Denmark, and Uzbekistan.
Productive first season in Portland
Brynjarsdottir, 25, played her first season in the NWSL this year. In 17 appearances, 12 of them starts, she scored five goals and assisted on one other. She logged 1,068 minutes out of a possible 1,800 in 2016. She only has eight shots on goal (SOG) all year and as mentioned above, she scored five goals. That is good for a 62% SOG which is pretty remarkable.
Previous international experience
Brynjarsdottir, a Florida State University graduate, has 66 international caps to her name. In those 66 games, she has scored 19 goals. During the last international break, she helped Iceland qualify for the UEFA Euro 2017 Championship after scoring two goals in their win over Slovenia on September 16th.
Brynjarsdottir made her way to Portland via a sign-and-trade deal with the Boston Breakers as mentioned by Jeff Kassouf of Equalizer Soccer. On that same day, Portland sent McCall Zerboni and Sinead Farrelly to Boston for the second overall draft pick and the 20th overall (2nd rd.) draft pick in the 2016 NWSL Draft. Portland then sent the same 20th overall pick and the 35th overall (4th rd.) for the rights to Brynjarsdottir.
Originally she tried to play in the NWSL in 2015 but the league would not allow her to play because she did not enter the 2015 NWSL Draft after she graduated college.
College Career
Brynjarsdottir played with FSU from 2011-2014 as part of their midfield. She helped lead the Seminoles to a national championship in 2014, the school’s first ever in women’s soccer. She is second all-time in goals scored (44), shots (231) and points (111). She holds the school record for game-winning goals with 19.