There was arguably no more impressive shot-stopper on the continent in 2024-25 than the 21-year-old, who had an award-winning season in Serie A
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Women's Euro Tickets
Secure your Women's Euro 2025 tickets for this summer's international tournamentLocation: SwitzerlandStadiums: Various, including St. Jakob Park, Stadion Wankdorf, Stade de Genève and moreDate: July 2 – 27Final: July 27, St. Jakob Park
From
€149
Buy nowRead MoreAccommodation
Where to stay
Book hotels, apartments and accommodation across Switzerland for the Women's EurosSearch for places to stay near the stadiums, across Zurich, Basel, Bern, Geneva and moreLook for accommodation based on your dates, number of bedrooms, and budget on Booking.com
From
€49
Book nowRead MoreKits
Shop your kit
New kits from adidas, Nike and Puma have been released for the Women's Euro tournamentGrab your favourite team's kit to support throughout the gamesSearch for your team, including Italy, England, Germany and moreAvailable in sizes XS – XXL
From
€50
Buy nowRead MoreTickets
Women's Euro Tickets
Secure your Women's Euro 2025 tickets for this summer's international tournamentLocation: SwitzerlandStadiums: Various, including St. Jakob Park, Stadion Wankdorf, Stade de Genève and moreDate: July 2 – 27Final: July 27, St. Jakob Park
From
€149
Buy nowRead MoreAccommodation
Where to stay
Book hotels, apartments and accommodation across Switzerland for the Women's EurosSearch for places to stay near the stadiums, across Zurich, Basel, Bern, Geneva and moreLook for accommodation based on your dates, number of bedrooms, and budget on Booking.com
From
€49
Book nowRead MoreKits
Shop your kit
New kits from adidas, Nike and Puma have been released for the Women's Euro tournamentGrab your favourite team's kit to support throughout the gamesSearch for your team, including Italy, England, Germany and moreAvailable in sizes XS – XXL
From
€50
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There are a lot of goalkeepers in the European women’s game who have marked themselves out as household names over the last few years. The continent boasts established veterans like Mary Earps and Christiane Endler, young stars such as Cata Coll and Hannah Hampton, and rising profiles that include Phallon Tullis-Joyce and Daphne van Domselaar. However, the best goalkeeper in Europe during the 2024-25 season, one can strongly argue, was someone else entirely, someone whose name is certainly not as well known.
That is Cecilia Ran Runarsdottir, the 21-year-old Iceland international who was crowned Goalkeeper of the Year in Serie A after being a key player in Inter’s first real title charge on the women’s side. The Nerazzurre would fall just short in that race, as Juventus returned to the top of the Italian game, but that should not take away from the performances of Runarsdottir. She kept more clean sheets than anyone else in the league and was a vital part of the division’s best defence as Inter secured Champions League qualification for the first time.
Though Runarsdottir is quick to offer her rebuttal to GOAL’s observation that the season could not have gone much better for her – “If we got the title,” she is quick to point out – this was a massive year for a player who has endured her fair share of bad luck over the last few years. After suffering an injury on the eve of the 2022 European Championship that required surgery and then missing almost a year due a truly awful knee problem, Runarsdottir is now well back on track to becoming one of the best goalkeepers around, and she heads into this summer’s Euros with the potential to show that on the biggest stage.
Getty ImagesHorrible injury luck
It was back in the summer of 2022, as she was preparing for the Euros, that GOAL first spoke to Runarsdottir. It was around that time that the young goalkeeper – then only 19 years old – signed a four-year contract with Bayern Munich, underlining her status as one of the most exciting prospects in her position. However, Iceland’s youngest-ever shot-stopper would suffer a disappointing setback less than a week after penning that deal, when a broken finger, which required surgery, ruled her out of Euro 2022 on the eve of Iceland’s opening game.
However, that obstacle would pale in comparison to the one Runarsdottir needed to conquer only a year later, when she dislocated her patella. Making matters worse was the fact that the cartilage in her knee was impacted so much by the injury that she needed a transplant. “It was such a shock,” she tells GOAL.
Runarsdottir is able to pick out some of the positives in the time she spent on the sidelines, be it the six weeks she was able to spend back home in Iceland at the start, the world-class rehab facilities she had to hand at Bayern and the essentially ever-present company there of Weronika Zawistowska, her club-mate who suffered an ACL injury at the same time, but it was a rough road to recovery that lasted 10 months.
AdvertisementGetty ImagesRoad to recovery
That the light at the end of that tunnel came in the final game of the 2023-24 season, though, was huge. Runarsdottir was able to get back fit just in time to turn out for Bayern Munich’s second team on the final weekend of their season and, looking back now, having had such a remarkable campaign on loan at Inter, she can’t help but note the significance of that game.
“I think that was good for me because I got the game time and then I could go into summer vacation and then I had the confidence, like, 'Okay, my knee is 100 percent stable, and I'm ready',” she explains. “I was in the national team group over the summer. I knew I wasn't going to play but I had the confidence that I could if something happened.”
“[If I didn’t play that game] then I would sign for a new club, and I'd be like, 'Oh, I haven't played for, I don't know how long'. That would have scared me more, I think.”
Getty ImagesTaking Italy by storm
That confidence Runarsdottir had under her belt showed as soon as she signed for Inter ahead of the 2024-25 season. “I felt at home straight away, to be honest,” she says of the temporary switch. “When I started the pre-season, I felt really good, and when I played the first game, I was like, 'Okay, now it's my chance to just play and prove myself'. And I feel like I've done that over the season.”
Of goalkeepers to play at least nine games in Serie A last term, no one conceded fewer goals than Runarsdottir, no one kept more clean sheets and no one had a better save percentage.
“I'm really proud of myself after the big injury to have stepped up so well,” she admits. “To be honest, I just really enjoyed playing football again, after two or three really hard years where I didn't play so much. It's so crazy how life gets like 100-times better when you're playing and when you have the confidence. Time goes by so fast. For me, I felt like the season was two months.”
Getty ImagesIceland's No.1
It means Runarsdottir, who signed permanently with Inter on Tuesday, goes into Euro 2025 in a fantastic place. Over five years on from her senior international debut, which made her Iceland’s youngest-ever goalkeeper, her return to fitness and remarkable club form has seen her establish herself as her country’s No.1, starting all six of their Nations League outings in 2025.
Of course, it’s a position Runarsdottir won’t take for granted, as she knows better than most that “you never know what’s going to happen”, but the disappointments of the past few years have only made her more motivated to be ready for this summer.
“It's been my goal since the last Euros to play this one,” she says. “It would be such a great honour, just to play for your country and we have a lot of fans coming. It would be my dream, to be honest. I've always dreamed of it. I think every little girl or every football player dreams of playing a big tournament for their country.”