Ilicic: “Me, Covid, depression, the falsehoods about my wife. I’m done with the Florentines”

We republish the interviews most appreciated by readers of the Gazzetta dello Sport in 2025. The one for Josip Ilicic was released on October 14th.

Josip Ilicic talks about himself through pauses, silences and unsaid words. Reveal what he experienced through facial expressions. He sends messages in bottles to the faces and squares of a lifetime while keeping some parts of the text to himself. He opened the little door for the first time overlooking the darkness that almost engulfed him from a room in the “Bonifika”, the Koper stadium in Koper, the city where he chose to start again at the age of 37 in the Slovenian first division.

Josip, even the shadow of stopping?

“I actually thought about it, but I’ve known the director and the president for 25 years. When they asked me to help them out I immediately accepted. As long as I’m physically well I want to enjoy it.” Will it close in Slovenia, then? “Yes, he gave me bread. I was born in Bosnia, but I don’t remember anything. My father died when I was one and a half years old. I grew up with my brother and my mother, who taught me to fight. My punches, my left foot, were born on the street.”

In Palermo they noticed it first.

“The Maribor sporting director called me into the office after the first leg in Slovenia. ‘We sold you,’ he said. ‘Where?’, I asked. ‘We can’t tell you anything.’

Sabatini said he was struck by his “biological sadness.”

“From the outside I seem asleep, in Bergamo they called me ‘grandmother’, but I never want to lose. I also tell my daughters. But the more you hammer me, the more you insult me, the stronger I am. I’ll go out and show you who I am. I’ve never hidden myself.”

In Palermo it started off great.

“I had a great defender: president Zamparini. He was in love with my football, like that of Pastore, of Miccoli, of players who always showed something different. He protected me. When things weren’t going well he invited me home, sent to pick me up on a private plane and told me that he had found the right coach for me. After a month he had already sent him away. With that team we could have done much more.”

How were the years in Florence?

“Complexes. I’m sorry to say it, but I’m done with the Florentines. They always criticized me based on how much I was paid, but in four years I was the best scorer and the best assister twice. Was I poor? Seriously? We finished fourth and it wasn’t enough. We made a semi-final of the Europa League… and it wasn’t enough. Even there, the regret of having lost a cup final remains. Having said that, I still have a home in Florence, a top city. Every now and then my family goes there.”

How does Atalanta arrive?

“I had finished with Sampdoria, but the day before the visits Gasperini called me. ‘Are you coming to play for me?’ he asked. ‘Mister, I’m going to Genoa, I can’t’. ‘Sartori will call you, don’t worry’. When I told him how much I would earn he replied ‘so what? What’s the problem?’. There I discovered what it means to go on a retreat with Gasperini.”

Tell us about your preparation.

“Between one training session and another you can’t sleep: your legs throb, you’re tired, you feel like vomiting. But it gets into your head like no one else. If you pass the training camp test, that is, three weeks of double sessions and runs in the woods, then you understand. How many games have we overturned thanks to that run? We lasted 90 minutes, the others were done for 60 minutes. Every now and then there were arguments with Gasp, but when you love each other you argue.”

What was that Atalanta?

“Two years ago I met Paratici in London. He told me that we had the championship attack. There I understood everything. Me, Papu, Muriel, Pasalic… we could have played with our eyes closed and we would still have scored. Nobody did what we did. We were strong, magical. Two goals at Anfield, five at Milan, five at Parma. That group was missing a trophy. We played in two Italian Cup finals, but the 2019 one is as if not I had played it.”

Does Bastos’ hand still gnaw at you?

“I’ve never seen Percassi so pissed off. Never. It was a penalty and an expulsion. I lost 4 finals, but that was still the worst.”

We arrive at Valencia-Atalanta. The best night of his life with four goals in the Champions League, before dark.

“Many people say to me: ‘But if what happened hadn’t happened, Covid, depression and everything, where would you have arrived?’. I don’t know, but we would have reached the Champions League final. I was in a state of form never seen before and we weren’t afraid of anyone. Is Real Madrid coming? Ok, but show that you are better than us. This was our thought. And Atalanta, in Valencia, changed the history of football. We became an example. And in the meantime the world began to stop, turning off the light…”.

And her too. Have you ever thought you couldn’t make it?

“I don’t talk about private things. They offered me money to tell my story, but I keep the details to myself.”

Why did he get sick?

“I didn’t know if I would play again, and when you’re stuck at home then you start to think. I was in Bergamo for 42 days without my family. I suffered. The money, the contracts, I didn’t care about anything anymore. I wasn’t well. And the rumors about my wife hurt me.”

They said she had cheated on him.

“Nothing could be further from the truth. But can you think that I would have found my wife with someone else? She has received incredible insults.”

Why didn’t he deny it?

“They would have asked me what was wrong, why I wasn’t me anymore. But my family, friends and classmates knew the truth.”

Why did they spread that rumor?

“Because I was at the top, and nothing was known about me. Something had to come out. In the end, I returned home. In Slovenia it was as if Covid didn’t exist, while in Bergamo the coffins were being paraded in trucks. A terrible image. Among other things, a few years earlier I had experienced the drama of Astori, with whom I played for years at Fiorentina. It marked me.”

Gasperini, recounting his ordeal, was moved. What effect did it have on her?

“It makes you understand how I was and how I was. And who the two of us were, together. I can’t forget what he did for me. In 2018 I was hospitalized for an infection. I was afraid of not waking up. After a week he told me ‘Josip, get up, we have to play’. ‘Mister, I can’t stand’. ‘I don’t care, stay on the pitch’. He also did it in Valencia. After the third goal I asked for a substitution, he ignored me and I scored the fourth. It pushed me beyond the limits I thought I had.”

Gasp also said that in 2020 she was a Ballon d’Or winner.

“What can I say? I never talk about myself, but I was in great shape. I don’t know if I was from Real Madrid, but in 2010, in Palermo, I set foot in the gym for the first time. Maybe if I had already done it at 17…”.

How many teams looked for her?

“With Napoli it was done, I spoke with Ancelotti, then Percassi blocked everything. Milan and Bologna also called me, with poor Mihajlovic. But I’m not crying: better as a protagonist in Bergamo than one of many in a so-called big team”.

Why did you leave Atalanta?

“It’s the fault of the tendons. The ups and downs with the weight were terrible. I wasn’t like before. I tried shots, treatments, but nothing. In 2022 Monchi called me to Seville for a two and a half year contract, but I told him that I couldn’t handle certain rhythms anymore. In the end, I returned to Maribor”.

When you said goodbye to Bergamo, did you cry?

“I was sad, but at the same time happy to return home after 12 years. In 2023, when the fans came to visit me in Maribor, I was moved. When you get close to the end of your career you start to understand what you’ve done.”

Was there a moment when you thought: “Was I loved like few others in Bergamo?”

“When I went to see Atalanta-Real Madrid, in 2024. I thought that people had forgotten, and instead the fans were singing. Modric also told me. ‘You didn’t play, but the stadium was everything for you’. We still talk to that group, even if we are scattered around the world. We missed a trophy, but I’m happy to have seen Atalanta win the 2024 Europa League. When I have more time, I’d be happy to see everyone again. We have done crazy things. Really crazy…”.