T
he strange case of
Atalanta starJosip
Ilicic has become
one of the great
footballing enigmas
of this COVID-driven
2020.
Ilicic fell right off the radar, out of
the team and out of sight, at the very
height of a fabulous Atalanta season
which took the Bergamo club to
unprecedented heights, not only
finishing third in Serie A but ending
their season in Lisbon with a
Champions League quarter-final
elimination by Paris Saint-Germain.
Depression, anxiety and mental
stress are nothing new for top-flight
professional athletes. It is part of the
price some players pay for the joys of
a pressurised, physically demanding
profession, lived out in the constant,
unforgiving glare of the public eye.
Not, indeed, that we know for certain
that Ilicic has suffered from some form
of depression. Yet what we do know is
that, as one source toldWorld Soccer:
“Whatever else, there is nothing
physically wrong with Ilicic.”
So what went wrong with the
talented 32-year-old Slovene? Since
his last appearance for Atalanta in
a 2-2 draw withJuventus onJuly11,
he has become an object of mystery.
At first it seemed that he was merely
injured and would soon be back.
Media reports suggested that he
was in a “race against time” to get
back for the quarter-final tie in Lisbon.
Bit by bit, it emerged that he was not
injured but that, nonetheless, would
not feature in Portugal.
He continued to remain out of
sight and was significantly still missing
on the night that Atalanta launched
their 2020-21 season in late August.
As a matter of principle and out of
respect for his privacy, the club will not
publicly discuss the “Ilicic question.”
Club spokesman Andrea Lazzaroni
said that whilst he could tell us nothing
about Ilicic’s well being, he could
confirm that the club still hoped to
see him return for training. While
they waited for their wayward genius,
however, Atalanta understandably
covered themselves with the
purchase of Lokomotiv Moscow
player Aleksey Miranchuk.Believed to have spent much of
the summer in his native Slovenia,
Ilicic was reportedly back in Bergamo
in late August, back training again –
albeit on his own – before returning
to full training with the club in early
September. Speaking about him
recently,Slovenian Federation president
RadenkoMijatovic suggested that Ilicic
is still battling with his “problems.”
Intriguingly, Mijatovic suggested
that Ilicic’s difficulties began with the
COVID-19 pandemic that, of course,
struck Bergamo, home of Atalanta,
especially hard. People who have worked
with Ilicic, such as coach Bortolo Mutti
who had him for a year at Palermo, says
that the Slovenian is indeed a “sensitive,
if exceptionally talented player.”
Mutti says that with Ilicic, you could
tell from his first few touches of the
ball in any game as to just how his
game was going to go. If he started
badly, he would become discouragedand disappear from the game, despite
his immense talent. In truth, to the
outside observer, Ilicic has often
seemed inconsistent.
There is little doubt that his absence
from the PSG game cost Atalanta
dearly. Remember, this is the guy who
scored all four Atalanta goals in their
previous Champions League game,
a 4-3 win in Valencia last March.
As it was, Atalanta ended up playing
their biggest-ever game without their
two most talented players – Ilicic and
Argentine Alejandro Gomez. Whilst
Ilicic had dropped himself out, theJosip Ilicic
Atalanta talisman missing from action
Headliners
His unhappy summer seems all
the more mysterious because it
happened at the very moment
when he and his club were
touching unprecedented heightsFouled...Ilicic was last
seen in Atalanta’sJuly
draw withJuventus