In many ways, it was Ivica Olic who set the tone for this wonderfully rumbustious World Cup. Sure, Oscar was doing his fancy stuff at the other end of the pitch, as was Neymar, but it was the 34-year-old Croat and his galloping runs down the left who made the biggest impression at the start of the opening game just over a week ago.
There was no messing around, just straightforward, glorious wing play. It was as if he had been flung in from a different era – an era before Arsène Wenger decided that all attacking players (bar one perhaps) should be short, nimble-footed midfielders who pass the ball around beautifully – and parachuted in behind the space left behind by the Brazil right-back Dani Alves.
Olic tormented Brazil in the opening 20 minutes and provided the cross from which Nikica Jelavic’s scuffed shot was turned into his own net by Marcelo. In their second game, against Cameroon, Olic scored his team’s first goal, coming in on the far post to sidefoot home Ivan Perisic’s beautifully weighted pass after 11 minutes. It was his second goal in seven World Cup matches, coming 12 years after making his debut and scoring at the tournament as a sprightly 22-year-old against Italy in Ibaraki. That’s 4,393 days – and a lot of hard work – between those two goals.
It is a testament to Olic’s professionalism and dedication that he, at the age of 34, is proving to be as mesmerising and menacing as he was then. In some ways he seems almost better. Olic is as straightforward as you like. He turns up and plays his game. He does not have a huge entourage around him and he does not feature in adverts for expensive cars which only 1% of the world’s population can afford.
He does not even appear to fancy himself in the same way that so many other modern footballers do, not least Cristiano Ronaldo. Now Ronaldo is, of course, a brilliant footballer – better than Olic no doubt – but there is something wonderfully appealing about Olic. You would never catch him rearranging his hair during a match, for example.
Let’s not forget, however, that Olic has had a distinguished club career as well. Born in the tiny town of Davor in eastern Croatia, he played for Marsonia, Hertha Berlin, NK Zagreb, Dinamo Zagreb and CSKA Moscow before he made it big with Hamburg in the Bundesliga.
He scored 29 goals in 78 Bundesliga games in a team who were, on occasions, fighting against relegation. That in turn earned him a move to Bayern Munich where he continued to score (although less frequently as he was often on the bench) and came agonisingly close to winning the Champions League against Chelsea in the final. Bayern were 1-0 up after 88 minutes before Didier Drogba equalised and Arjen Robben missed a penalty in extra time. In the penalty shootout Olic was one of two Bayern players to miss (Bastian Schweinsteiger was the other) and the Croat was allowed to leave on a free that summer.
He choose to join Wolfsburg, which seemed apt as, with an old Volkswagen, he could be relied on to keep going. Olic has done more than that – he has scored 23 goals in 64 league games for the club and recently signed a contract extension until 2016.
There is still unfinished business with Croatia and Niko Kovac’s team need a win against Mexico on Monday to be guaranteed a place in the last 16 (although a draw will be enough in the unlikely event of Brazil losing to Cameroon).
Olic is a guaranteed starter and while he has not always been appreciated back home (at one point in his career he was running so fast that he struggled to control the ball, leading to jokes such as: “What does a defender do when he sees Olic doing stepovers? He politely waits until Olic finishes, then takes the ball.”) but there is nothing but admiration now.
At this World Cup there has already been one moment which perfectly encapsulated what kind of wonderfully understated person Olic is. Having been substituted after 69 minutes against Cameroon he was later interviewed by German TV and they talked about the game and his goal before he mentioned, merely in passing, that he had cut a foot on the shower door that morning and had done all that running with a stitched right foot.
“It’s starting to hurt a bit more now, having come off,” he said. “I’ll take it a bit easier for two or three days … then we go again.”
If only there were more players like Ivica Olic in modern football.
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