Knattspyrnufélagið Valur FC: Where the Sith train, the Empire plots… and the stadium is slightly smaller than KR’s.

The greatest stories have always thrived on one irresistible premise: good versus evil. Heel versus face. Or, for the full Star Wars-obsessed among us, Light versus Dark. And my 15-year reign as the KR boss in Football Manager 2008 was no exception.

My villain had a name. Valur FC. My sworn nemesis. I was A New Hope for my KR side, and they were the Empire to my plucky Reykjavík Rebellion — hell-bent on slamming the curtain down on my digital dynasty before it could truly begin.

In my Football Manager save, they weren’t just rivals — they were the entire Sith Council, armed with a recruitment strategy and a set of metaphysical dark arts designed specifically to ruin my post-work digital decompression. And leading their crimson-shirted legion? Hafthór Vilhjálmsson. A perfectly ordinary 19-year-old on paper — statistically as beige as an unskippable tutorial level — yet the moment KR rolled into town, he transformed into Darth Flaming Vader, with a left foot hotter than Mustafar.

Every time we played them, he’d descend into the match like he’d just Force-choked his way through the team bus. My prematch team talks never came with an option to warn them about the Return of the Sith. Shots that physics politely asked not to exist suddenly bent into the top corner, and I’d just sit there, staring at the screen, knowing full well this bang-average kid was powered entirely by Sith lightning and pure spite.

And Valur’s home ground — Hlíðarendi — may as well have been the Death Star: a cold, humming battlestation where league title charges went to die. I’d send my digitally rendered squad there on the tiny FM coach and the second we arrived it was like someone had activated a tractor beam. My star striker? Suddenly performing like a malfunctioning battle droid. My defenders? Exhibiting the structural integrity of a Stormtrooper’s aim. Every match felt like the final act of Attack of the Clones, and my Captain Rex was Stefán Logi Magnússon — my final line of defence, bravely attempting to hold back a perfectly coordinated digital apocalypse.

Their manager — and I say this with absolutely zero evidence — radiated Big Palpatine Energy. Substitutions timed as though he was crackling Force lightning straight into my tactics screen. Injuries appearing with theatrical precision. Goals arriving right on cue for the imaginary John Williams score.

Those early seasons were galactic chaos. Every league campaign went right down to the wire. And even when the title race wasn’t against Valur, the fixture list would inevitably conspire to have us playing them on the final day. The scheduling gods knew the script. They wanted the drama. The Empire Strikes Back if they win if we loose.

So I adapted. Like goblin-brained Yoda in Return of the Jedi, rambling, all-seeing, and clearly operating on a level of consciousness unregulated by modern medicine, I turned to youth development. I couldn’t attract superstars to Iceland — glaciers and Hoth-like winters don’t sell well to agents — so I built academies instead. My own Jedi temples. Arctic Padawans drilled by digital prophecy. I would out-Valur Valur.

And slowly, it worked. My youth setup stopped producing “promising prospects” and started minting absolute footballing warlords. Their Sith magic fizzled. The terror? Gone. Now every match against Valur felt less like a showdown and more like a scheduled lesson in humility.

It was their cup final now — while I gazed across Scandinavia like a man planning a scenic invasion: Molde, Djurgården… the next cold, unsuspecting system.

Their Empire crumbled like a badly glued Death Star Lego set, while my star striker Kjartan Henry Finnbogason reduced them to ash. KR didn’t just rule Reykjavík — it annexed the nation.

Fast-forward to real life: I finally made a flying visit to Valur on my way back to the hotel — and this is where it gets delicious. Because believe it or not, Valur’s so-called fortress is actually smaller than KR’s. That’s right. The infamous Death Star of my digital nightmares is, in real terms, more of a beautifully renovated garden shed with delusions of galactic grandeur. Less “planet-destroying weapon”, more “architecturally smug pavilion with a superiority complex”. Who’s laughing now? (It’s me. I am absolutely laughing now.)

That said — and I grant this through gritted, victorious teeth — Valsvöllur is spotless. State-of-the-art. Slick. Efficient. And unapologetically… red. Not just team-colour red. No. This is theatrical, villain-origin-story red. The shade you choose when your brand identity is: We might be the bad guys, but look how beautifully we’ve committed to it. Some might even call it blood red — the shade of shattered title ambitions and the broken dreams of rivals fallen at their feet over the decades. A Phantom Menace in architectural form, complete with elite drainage for its artificial pitch so even the rain knows who’s in charge.

The facilities are pristine. The stand looks ready for surprise inspections by Emperor Palpatine himself, complete with white gloves and a disappointed nod. Even the railings seemed unwilling to underperform.

And Valur, annoyingly, have the silverware to justify the swagger. Across football, handball and basketball — they’ve collected over a century’s worth of trophies. They are, without question, a sporting superpower in Iceland.

Financially too, Valur is not here to mess about. They are essentially Roman Abramovich-era Chelsea… but in Reykjavík: well-funded, well-organised and slightly offensive to anyone attempting to live out an underdog fantasy (again: me). They are a cheat-code club with a final-boss budget. And yet…

For all the shine, the red, the Sith theatrics and galactic ambition — it still doesn’t quite land the emotional blow that KR does. Valur may have the stadium, the titles, the financial clout and the immaculate paintwork… but KR has my soul. My scarf. My one Champions League AND fifteen fictional league titles.

So yes, Valur FC: impressive. Immaculate. Dangerous. The Empire in both aesthetic and attitude. But let’s be very clear about this… The Rebel Alliance still stands. And I know exactly where my loyalties lie.