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.
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