In the summer of 2003, Ivica Olic left Zagreb for CSKA, and his success with the Armymen – three RPL championships, a UEFA Cup, a Russian Cup and the Russian Super Cup – helped him break into the Bundesliga, where he played for Hamburg, Bayern Munich and Wolfsburg. After 18 years, the Moscow club has launched another stage in the Croat's life – as a head coach.

"When I heard about CSKA, I said: 'I have a wife, a family'"

In the summer of 2003, Olic was champion and top scorer of the Croatian First League in the previous two seasons, and with different teams – with Zagreb in the 2001/02 season, and the capital side Dynamo a year later. After Ivica's championship with Dynamo, Sport-Express journalists asked Andrey Chernyshov, who was then training with Spartak, about the 22-year-old striker.

"There is also an Argentine striker. But there are not many skilled players who can actually be purchased. Those that can immediately draw the attention of European clubs, and from neighbouring Ukraine," the coach answered to correspondents about the interest in Olic and Ivan Bosnjak, another Croatian forward who eventually moved to Dinamo Zagreb.

A year later, Ivica explained to SE, why he did not move to the Red-Whites: "Spartak did not want to pay my transfer fee from Dinamo Zagreb. They were going to wait another six months until the end of the contract so that they could get me for free."

Incidentally, while talking to journalists at home, Olic said that Dynamo Kyiv and Italian giants Juventus had shown interest in him. "The club's management behaved somewhat incorrectly towards me. Despite all that I had done for the team, they did not want to let me leave the club for less than 10 million euros. Juventus, for example, offered six million for me," Soviet Sport quoted the player's answers.

As a result, the Zagreb club received less compensation from CSKA – five million euros – but for the RPL in 2003, this transfer amount was nevertheless a record. Olic himself signed a four-year contract with the Army.

"When my agent first spoke about CSKA, I honestly replied that I only knew Spartak from Russia, and Dynamo and Shakhtar from Ukraine," Ivica admitted in an interview with Sports.ru in 2014. "Yes, I heard something about CSKA, but they were not successful then. Lokomotiv and Spartak were successful.

"And then I heard about CSKA and said: 'Wow, what? CSKA? I have a wife, a family.' But my wife said: 'Let's go, take a closer look. Still, this league is stronger than Croatia, and you need to move to a new level.' We were a little afraid of Moscow. We were told that it is not easy, it is not safe there. But I came, talked to President Giner and realized that everything would be fine for me.

"Olic is a typical modern forward," CSKA head coach Valery Gazzaev told SE after signing the newcomer. "He's fast, efficient, with high individual skill. At the same time, he is quite young. Purchasing him will undoubtedly strengthen the team.

"The rivals did not know me and afforded me much more space"

The transfer of Olic was completed on 29 July, and on 2 August the Croat made his RPL debut: CSKA faced Shinnik in Yaroslavl and drew 1-1, and the newcomer scored a goal in the 46th minute. Together with Ivica, the Berezutsky brothers – his current assistants at the CSKA headquarters – took the lead. On the bench was Igor Akinfeev, still the current number one.

In the remaining part of the championship, the forward was CSKA top scorer, with seven of the team's 22 goals, and in the penultimate matchday he helped Gazzaev's team to win the championship ahead of schedule. Against Rotor, the striker opened the scoring in the 27th minute, and by the 35th they were already 3-0 up. Thanks to the victory, CSKA became national champions for the first time in Russian history, and Olic picked up his third title in a year and a half.

Ivica Olic is the second on the right in the second row

At the time of his debut, the Croat had been out of practice for more than two months, while CSKA had already played three matches in the RPL after a pause between matchdays, plus met with Vardar in Champions League qualification. "If you only knew how easier it was for me to play in August, when I first came to Russia!" Olic told SE after the championship. "Firstly, there was still enough freshness after the vacation, and secondly, the opponents did not know me yet and afforded me much more room for movement.

"I heard the opinion that Jarosik spurred the team forward at the beginning of the championship, and Olic at the end. But this is not quite true. Jiri, of course, is a very high-class footballer, but he naturally gets tired, just like the others. I just stood out from the crowd. And it's not that I'm better at finishing the chances, but that I was fresher than my teammates."

"I don't need any mask. Only if it scares the Sporting defenders" 

After the arrival of Artur Jorge at CSKA, Olic won the 2004 Russian Super Cup, but in the RPL he did not always make the starting lineup. The Croat's best match during his time with the coach came in Volgograd against Rotor on 1 May: the forward came on in the 40th minute and by the 71st had bagged a hat-trick – the first by a foreigner in RPL. 

In July, the team was again led by Gazzaev, and Ivica scored four times in the first five RPL matches. At the end of the year, the three forwards – Olic, Kirichenko & Vagner Love – scored 27 goals between them. Each had nine, although the Brazilian had only joined in the summer. However, CSKA could not defend the title at the end of the season as Lokomotiv finished top.

In the winter of 2005, Gazzaev's team started in UEFA Cup knockout stages, and Olic appeared in almost every match. He only missed the first match with Benfica in the Round of 32, but did not make a tangible effect. Nevertheless, Olic started the decisive game against Sporting, although five days before the final his nose was broken. The injury was inflicted by Zenit defender Erik Hagen in the first semi-final of the Russian Cup, which CSKA lost 1-0 in St. Petersburg.

"I will still play on Wednesday, albeit in a not completely conventional way. I don't need any mask - unless it frightens the Sporting defenders. It's good that my wife didn't see me like this – I'm not sure that she would have liked me," the footballer told Sovetsky Sport before flying to Lisbon.

Olic played final in a mask borrowed from Sporting defender Beto, who had himself suffered a broken nose, but also played from the start. Olic played 67 minutes, and two minutes before his substitution, Yury Zhirkov put CSKA ahead. The Croatian was replaced by Milos Krasic, and eight minutes later, Vagner Love secured the Armymen's 3-1 victory and the club's first European trophy.

"Before that game, we believed we'd win," Olic told Sports.ru "We had a lot of confidence in ourselves. I think at that time the brothers [Aleksey and Vasily Berezutsky - Premierliga.ru], Akinfeev, Ignashevich, Yura Zhirkov played the best football in their careers. They were 22-25 years old, while we also had Daniel Carvalho, who in my opinion was one of the best tens in the world. Vagner was up front and I was a good player, too. Young Krasic! Rahimic was the six. Super."

Gazzaev noted after the Match that the decision to pick Olic in the starting XI was made jointly by the player, coach and doctor the day before the match. "The player promised that he would not have to regret it," said the head coach to SE. "And he was a man of his word. He did not avoid battles or hard collisions, and constantly clung to the ball. Given his injury, Ivica proved to be a true warrior."

"After each game on the bench I asked myself: 'What am I doing in Moscow?'" 

At the end of 2005, CSKA became not only winners of the UEFA Cup, but also of the Russian Cup and two-time RPL champions. In the league Olic was the team's top scorer with 10 goals. However, the striker started the next season down the pecking order. 

Brazilian striker Jo broke into the squad and scored 14 goals in 17 league matches. When he withdrew due to injury, the Croatian returned to the start and finished the season with nine goals in the RPL and a third championship, and even earlier won the Super Cup and the Cup too.

However, already in the course of the year, Olic decided not to renew his contract, which was due to expire in the summer of 2007. "After every game spent on the bench, I asked myself: 'What am I doing in Moscow?'" admitted the player to SE after the 3-2 Champions League defeat to Hamburg, the last game in the group stages. "It was especially painful when I watched the matches against Arsenal from the bench. Or the match against Porto. I was brought on for a few minutes, even though I had scored six goals in six games before."

At the end of 2006, both foreign clubs and CSKA's competitors, such as Spartak, were interested in Olic. The Croat even described the Red-Whites' offer as "fantastic", and from European countries chose between Germany, England and France. The final choice was Hamburg, against whom Olic played his last competitive match for the Red-Blues.

"No one from Spartak has ever spoken to me personally," the player said SE before leaving for the German club. "Therefore, I can't judge how serious the interest from this club was. But the fact that it was there is true. As well as the fact that at a certain period Lokomotiv were interested in me. 

"But even if the transfer to Hamburg had not taken place now and I had stayed at CSKA for another six months, then I would still most likely have gone abroad. Maybe to Germany, and maybe to England or France. At least there were offers from clubs from these countries. But it's pointless to talk about them now."

The result of Olic's playing career at CSKA is 44 goals in all competitions, three league titles, two Cups and Russian Super Cups, plus the UEFA Cup. In the RPL he scored 35 times. His nearest closest Croatian challenger is Nikola Vlasic: the midfielder is eight goals behind the ex-forward, and now they will work together at the Armymen.

"I want to win with CSKA to return the club to where it should be" 

The reason to remember the ex-CSKA man among Russian fans came in November 2007 before the final matches of the Euro 2008 qualification. The Russian national team needed a victory over Andorra and an England defeat against Croatia to guarantee a trip to the final stage. 

The Croatian did their bit, including Olic, who scored in the 14th minute. The Croats led 2-0, and although they lost their lead after the break, a Mladen Petric goal brought them all three points as they won 3-2. Russia beat Andorra 1-0 thanks to a Dmitry Sychev goal, and reached the Euros from second place.

"I spent three and a half good years in Moscow and I wanted Russia to go to the European Championship, not England," Olich told SE. "I gave my all on the pitch. I have three wounds on my head which I received in the clashes in the first half. During the break, our doctor sewed them up and suggested that I not go out for the second half. But I said I wanted to play it out to the end. I got a call from the Russian players after the game – Ignashevich, Gabulov, and many others – everyone congratulated and thanked me."

At the Euros, the Croats lost on penalties to Turkey in the quarter-finals, and Olic's former teammates Akinfeev, Gabulov, the Berezutsky brothers, Ignashevich, Zhirkov and Sergey Semak finished third. Before the end of his career, Olic went with the national team to another tournament, the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, where he scored in a 4-0 win over Cameroon in the group stages. 

The next tournament in 2018 in Russia was already the first for the former CSKA player as a coach. In October 2017, three months after the end of his playing career at 1860 Munich, Olic joined the staff of Zlatko Dalic with the Croatian national team.

"My duties are analyzing matches, and viewing potential newcomers. Almost every week I go somewhere and follow the players. It was not easy to switch to coaching. When you're a player, you look at things very differently. You don't see what's happening on the pitch from the outside. 

When you're a coach, you try to think about everything before you make a decision. And you work very hard on psychology; how to communicate with the players, how to engage in tactics – there is no way without it," Olic said about his work to Rossiyskaya Gazeta in June 2018.

The Croats achieved the best result in their history at the 2018 World Cup as they reached the final. First, they won their group, where they beat Nigeria, Argentina and Iceland, before knocking out Denmark, Russia and England in the knockouts, but losing the final 4-2 to France. 

In 2019, Dalic's team won the Euro 2020 qualifying group. In the finals they will meet England, the Czech Republic and Scotland. In the autumn of 2020, Olic told the CSKA press service that he planned to stay at the national team headquarters just until the end of the tournament and only then think about an independent career.

"The whole problem is my coaching license," he said. "In Croatia, you need to study for three and a half years to get the necessary category for head coach roles. I have to finish my training before the European Championships, and then we'll see. 

"But I am also happy with my work in the Croatian national team. We have achieved good results with the team. We have a lot of young players like Nikola [Vlasic - Premierliga.ru]. I will definitely stay with the national team until the end of the Euros, and then we will see."

The chance to become a head coach appeared a little earlier, on 23 March, during a break in the RPL calendar, CSKA officially appointed Olic as head coach after the resignation of Viktor Goncharenko, and Olic left his role at the national team.

"We have been in contact with the club for many years as friends," Ivica told the club's press service after the appointment. "But the talk about me becoming the head coach started only a few days ago. We discussed my vision, my opinion about the team. And today I'm here. I'm very happy to be back. 

"This is my club, my home. I want to win with CSKA to get the club back to where it belongs. Not just me: the whole staff and the players want it. I will give my all. There's a lot of work ahead."

Photo: CSKA Moscow; HNS