Icelandic defensive lineman Nikulás Snær Magnússon is heading to Spain and the Mallorca Voltors for the 2020 season.
The Voltors, who play in Spain’s top league, reached the quarterfinals in 2019 after finishing the regular season with a 4-4 record.
The 6’4″, 290 lb 24 year old spent the last two seasons playing with the Reykjavik Einherjar, the only team in Iceland. The Einerjar regularly play games against European and North American teams and in the past two seasons, over seven games, Magnusson recorded 10 tackles, five sacks and one forced fumble along with a fumble recovery. Reykjavik most recently played Finnish runner ups, the Kuopio Steelers losing 42-28. Two years ago, the Einerjar traveled to Mallorca where they defeated the Voltors, 21-14.
In 2017, he spent the season with the Stockholm Mean Machines in Sweden’s Superserien where he recorded 15.5 tackles and two sacks in eight games.
He hasn’t been the only American football player to leave the island nation, which has a population of 300,000, to play in another country. But he was the first to make it in Sweden and now to Spain.
He along with two of his Icelandic teammates had tried out for the Mean Machines, but he was the only one of three who was able to stay and play.
Magnusson explains who he ended up signing to play in Mallorca:
“They had reached out to me when I was looking for a team to play for in the summer and they asked if I would be interested in joining them for the 2020 season. I loved the location and after playing against them in 2017 knew I would want to play there one day. They were interested so I accepted.”
