CROATIA Olic: Twelve years and still going strong

Ivica Olic was still a relative newcomer to international football when he was called up to the Croatian national team squad for the 2002 FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan™. The goal that he would subsequently score against Italy on that occasion would not only draw the attention of big European clubs, but it would also prove to be the first chapter of a story that is still being written twelve years down the line.

By Brazil 2014 much had changed for that young prospect who had just become a father for the first time in 2002. In his place now stands an experienced 34-year-old footballer, a father of three with a long, successful career behind him at clubs like Hamburg, Bayern Munich and, currently, Wolfsburg. And considering all that he has been through, the goal that he would score in Croatia’s 4-0 win over Cameroon in Manaus would not just represent his second strike at a FIFA World Cup. The feat would etch Olic’s name into the record books, as only the second player to have taken 12 years to double his FIFA World Cup account.