"The whole country was gripped by women's football fever!"
Dagny Brynjarsdottir, 23, became a national heroine in Iceland after scoring the goal that earned her country a place in the quarter-finals of UEFA Women's EURO 2013.
17 July 2013 will always be a special day for me, That was the day I scored the goal that made me famous. One newspaper in Florida, where I was studying sports marketing and playing for Florida Seminoles College ar the time, even claimed that the goal had made me a national hero in Iceland.
My goal in the 1-0 victory over the Netherlands at the European Championships in Sweden was a momentous one in the history of our quarter-finals of the Euros for the very first time.
The cross came from the left and I leapt up, won the header and scored the goal. Of course, it was impossible to tell at that point how important that goal would go on to be. I was just celebrating because we had taken the lead in the game. After the final whistle the joy was obviously unbounded.
We partied and danced and I ran towards the stands because my parents and boyfrind were at the match.
Because the game was being broadcast live on television, the goal made me famous overnight. The match really captured the imagination of the 320,000 inhabitants of Iceland, who were all gripped by women's football fever! It was as if the whole country had caught fire.
Ever since my goal I'm often recognised in the street and people come up and talk to me when I'm out shopping. That fills me with pride.
And yet it didn't even look like I was going to make the starting eleven for that game. I hadn't felt rigth during training before our first match at the Euros, but I did well in the final session ahead of the opener and managed to carry that form into the group stages.
I was named in the starting line-up despite the fact I'd been given the number 14 shirt. I think it was down to my fighting spirit. Even as a little girl I had to assert myself physically when I was playing with boys, which made me very tough.
I grew up in Hella, a village of 700 inhabitants south-east of Reykjavik. When I joined local giants Valur in 2007 I was on my own for the first time. My parents had been driving me back and forth to training and to matches. Eventually they decided that I should move.
From being sheltered at my parents'house in our little village to being all alone in a big city as a 16-years-old - that was good for my development and helped me cope better after I moved to Florida. It made me grow up.
Exclusive,
Dagny Brynjarsdottir was speaking to Rainier Hennies
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