In 1993, IA Akranes’ dominance in Icelandic football continued, with Gudjon inspiring his side to the league and cup double, with IA finishing the season as Premiership champions and Icelandic Cup winners.
IA’s dominance in the league was such that it became quite incredible to seasons gone by in the Icelandic game.
The club won sixteen out of eighteen league games, losing only one, this still whilst having to cope with flogging their best player and main goal-scorer, but yet improvement was still rapid.
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Bursting onto the scene under the guidance of his father, Toddi went on to become an established member of his father’s groundbreaking Akranes' side. Aged just nineteen, he equalled the record of most goals scored during a season – 19 goals. And like so many before him, was soon snapped up by a foreign club as German Bundesliga side, Vfl Bochum beat a host of sides in securing Toddi’s services.
The double was secured when IA Akranes beat Keflavik (whom Gudjon quit to join Notts County years later) in the Icelandic Cup final 2-1, with Toddi Gudjonsson getting on the score sheet yet again.
Such was the calibre of their achievement; the Icelandic press were happy to heap praise upon Gudjon and his boys.
The key for the success was consistency, helped further by the fact the same eleven players started nearly every match together.
The biggest game of the season was to come though. IA Akranes had qualified for the UEFA Cup by winning the league the year before and were drawn against Albanian side Partizan Tirana in the first round.
The Icelandic media rated the games as fifty-fifty because the Albanian side were an unknown quantity. Gudjon went into the games determined that his side would win and they did as IA Akranes won 3-0 on aggregate, with Dutch giants Feyenoord waiting in the next round.
As they did, they were to be met by a familiar face in the Feyenoord line-up in the shape of former star striker Arnar Gunnlaugsson. He had endured a difficult time since joining Feyenoord and was being kept out of the side by another Feyenoord newboy, one Henrik Larsson.
In spite of that, Gunnlaugsson was given the chance to start against his old team in Reykjavik, that autumn evening in 93. And a memorable evening it certainly turned out to be.
Even Gunnlaugsson couldn’t prevent Akranes from producing the finest result an Icelandic club side has ever produced, as the smash-and-grab performance earned a 1-0 victory over the Dutch giants.
Gudjon had done it again and the press were praising his managerial skills to the skies. The return leg proved too much though as Feyenoord stamped their authority on the minnows right from the off and came away 3-0 winners.
The defeat was to be Gudjon’s last game in charge of IA Akranes for a while as his stock in Icelandic football had risen so much that Iceland’s financially biggest club KR Reykjavik secured his services and proved successful in doing so in the autumn of 1993.
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Gudjon had his reasons; he needed a fresh challenge as he had won everything in Icelandic football with IA Akranes. With joining KR Reykjavik, Gudjon was in theory taking on a much harder task than when he took over IA Akranes following their relegation from the Premiership in 1990. KR Reykjavik was indeed a sleeping giant.
Before the 1994 season the club had won the Icelandic Premiership twenty times but the last title had come way back in 1968, the last Cup title was in 1967, so drastic measures were needed.
And that meant depriving their rivals of the best manager in the league and to tempt him to Reykjavik.