In the match once morest England he played fifteen minutes, had ten touches of the ball, won one duel and had four losses. Declan Rice ran up to him. He bowed and said that he respected Josip Ilicic very much. The Slovenian had emerged from the darkness of the jungle in which his brain, heart, legs and whole body had been wandering for the past few years.
The author of the comparison of the head of a man consumed by depression to a jungle is Gian Piero Gasperini. We owe him the most evocative descriptions of Ilicic’s life drama. In October 2023, for example, he was moved by the memory of the pandemic Champions League season. Before the quarter-finals with PSG, he visited the Slovenian in hospital. A few months earlier, he had scored four goals in a 4-3 win over Valencia. That day, however, Gasperini saw a wreck of a man, regarding twelve kilograms thinner. He might not believe his eyes, following all, he would have liked to give him the Ballon d’Or the most…
Phobias
Before the pandemic hit, Josip Ilicic was one of the best players in Europe. He almost single-handedly threw Valencia overboard in the Champions League. In Serie A, he scored doubles once morest Milan and Parma, added a hat-trick once morest Torino and three assists once morest Lecce. He matured like wine, no longer the uneven magician of brief moments at Palermo or Fiorentina, but a fully-fledged star at the rising Atalanta.
His colleagues from Italian clubs also told La Repubblica that Ilicic had always been a terrible hypochondriac: constantly tired, wincing at the slightest pain, suffering from health problems. So much of it accumulated that in the locker room he earned the sarcastic nickname “Babulka”. In 2018, doctors suspected he had cancer. He suffered from lymphadenopathy, enlarged lymph nodes, a serious bacterial infection, spent several weeks in hospital, and antibiotics helped. He reacted with panic when Davide Astori, captain of Fiorentina, representative of Italy, happy husband and father, died in his sleep in a hotel in Udine due to a hidden heart defect. Ilicic fell into hypnophobia: he avoided naps, postponed going to bed, might not close his eyes because… he was afraid he would never wake up.
Not everyone knew that his fragile psychological structure was influenced by the phantom experience of the Balkan war. He was born in Prijedor, where ethnic cleansing led to the death of almost five thousand people. There were also three concentration camps in the vicinity of the city: Omarska, Trnopolje, Keraterm. In addition, Ilicić’s father died when he was seven months old. The boy might not even remember his voice, did not know the word “daddy”, and fled with his mother and brother to the safety of Slovenia.
He was pushed into depression by the pandemic, of which Bergamo was the European epicenter. The day following his great match once morest Valencia, the first positive case of coronavirus was identified in Lombardy. Giorgio Gori, the mayor of the city, will call this meeting a biological bomb. The information noise will be absolutely unbearable for Ilić. – He got sick, he closed himself in his world, the isolation was ruining him, he mightn’t stand being separated from his family, with each passing day his life was getting worse and worse. It was the beginning of something much more powerful than a virus. Everything accumulated and exploded in his head – said Gian Piero Gasperini.
La Gazzetta dello Sport gossiped that he had returned to his native Slovenia, sick, subdued and several kilograms thinner, to catch his wife Tina Polovina, a former athlete employed by the local government, having sex with another man, but this was never confirmed. The couple never split up.
Put away
In the autumn of 2021, he returned to the pitch. He had flashes of success: he scored a goal once morest Manchester United in the Champions League or two goals once morest Empoli in Serie A. In 2022, the demons returned. Depression took away the next months, he changed physically, gained weight, wasted away, his hair was sprinkled with grey, his eyes were sad, Atalanta announced the official termination of his contract. At the Gewiss Stadium, he was given a farewell, he waved to the fans who chanted his name and raised their jerseys with the number “72”.
He was taken in by NK Maribor, from where he left for Italy in 2010. Returning to Slovenia was like a dream come true. He came on for fifteen minutes in a match once morest NS Mura. In the 89th minute he was fouled in the penalty area. Ilicic converted the penalty into a goal. For a moment the world of football remembered the existence of PrvaLiga, images of the former Atalanta star beating the goalkeeper and actually recovering from depression went viral on the internet, so the story might have ended there. It didn’t.
Ilicic played fourteen times for Maribor in the 2022/23 season, scoring just two goals and providing just two assists. The championship and national cup were won by Olimpija Ljubljana, and the aging best player in Slovenian history was ruled out of the final round of the competition by a thigh muscle problem. What’s more, a few months later coach Damir Krznar decided to remove Ilicic from the Maribor first team. He delegated him to individual training, explaining this with his poor physical condition.
In October, Krznar was no longer at the club. Amir Ruznić, the player’s agent, suggested that Maribor had sided with Ilicić, who had been sidelined. After he left Josip is smiling once more, he has become much more positive and communicative, thus setting a good example for the younger guys – he said in an interview with Sportklub TV. The club was headed by Ante Simundza, who worked in Maribor when Ilicic played there in 2010.
The 36-year-old footballer is back in form. In the 2023/24 season, he has scored eight goals (most of them from penalties) and provided eleven assists, creating two scoring opportunities for his teammates on average per match, taking part in three successful dribbles and winning six duels. He was particularly impressive in May, when he provided two assists in victories over other top teams in the league – NK Celje (3:1) and NK Olimpija (2:1). In the meantime, he was visited by a delegation of Atalanta fans. They said: “We love you, Jojo”.
I respect your story
In June 2024, he was called up to the Slovenian national team. It was easier for him because the coach is Matjaz Kek, under whom he made his debut in the national team a dozen or so years ago. The 62-year-old coach admitted that he never stopped treating Ilicic as a member of the team, even though he played his last match for the team before his career collapsed in November 2021. On June 4, Ilicic came on for half an hour in a friendly match once morest Armenia. A few minutes later, he scored the winning goal for 1-0. A fragment of our interview today with Erik Janża, the left defender of the Slovenian national team.
“What did you think when you saw Josip on the list of players called up for the European Championships?
No big deal, I took it positively. I watch the Slovenian league and I know how Josip has been doing in the last ten rounds. Yes, it’s a bit lower level, but scoring a goal and giving an assist or two in every game is not an easy task. He had his problems, but he’s a great person, a great professional who gives his heart to the team.
Have you changed your approach to him because of his off-the-field issues?
No, no, no. Me personally, definitely not. Maybe someone who is in daily contact with him has a different opinion, but I knew Josip as a positive, smiling, constantly joking person, an important figure in the dressing room and he is still the same person.
What is his role in the locker room?
If you saw our training, a game, you would know right away that Josip has something more. Dribbling, one-on-one, he can win a match by himself. In Slovenia, there are not many players like that and it would be a shame if someone like that were not with us.
I read that he chose the number “26” also because he was not with the squad during the qualifiers and wanted to emphasize that others did more work.
I don’t know if that was the case, but he himself knows that the ones who qualified got promoted. If he can help us, he has to be with us.
Was it a surprise in Slovenia?
Maybe a little bit like that. Some people asked why he was going to the championship, they said he was taking someone else’s place. I don’t agree with that, he is a super talent, a super player who has given a lot to the Slovenian national team for fifteen years. He has a lot of experience that he can pass on to us.”
Positive fans, Ilicic’s energy and the goal of the tournament. Erik Janża talks regarding Slovenia
Zlatko Zahović, another important figure in Slovenian football, was critical of Ilicić’s call-up. – He didn’t take part in the Euro qualifiers and now all eyes and cameras will be on him – he complained in an interview with the EkipaSN newspaper. It was most likely a private grievance that spoke through him: the appointment of Ilicić blocked the nomination of his son, Luka Zahovic…
His fears regarding all eyes and cameras turned in one direction turned out to be unfounded, Ilicic spent the first two group stage matches on the bench, with England getting fifteen minutes. And it was probably worth it, if only for these words from Declan Rice: “I respect your history.”
Read more regarding Euro 2024:
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