[5] He made his debut for Iceland in 1976 and went on to win 70 caps, scoring eight goals[6] and captaining the team 31 times.
On 4 July 2009, Atli was appointed manager of Úrvalsdeild karla club Valur until the end of the season.
His father, Evald Mikson (Icelandic: Eðvald Hinriksson), was a goalkeeper in the Estonian national football team between 1934 and 1938.
Evald was the Tallinn chief of police during the German occupation of Estonia during World War II.
[10] In December 2018, he revealed in an interview with RÚV that he had been battling a serious illness for two years and that initially the doctors only gave him two weeks to live.