Osim: What Happened in the Game?

Now I love football. And I’m sure you love football. But turns out neither of us loves football quite as much as Ivica Osim. The Bosnian manager of the Japanese national team suffered a stroke while watching football at home on November 16th and had been in a coma. But he woke up last week and legend has it that his first question was “What happened in the game?” Now that’s what I call commitment to a televised football match.

Osim is a bit of a legend already, having branded his Japan side “amateurs,” reduced an interpreter to tears and famously refused to watch his team’s penalty shootout against Australia during the Asian Cup recently. Characters like Osim are what make football the greatest game on the planet and offer a much needed antidote to millionaire footballers who take the game for granted.

So Osim probably won’t be too pleased to hear that the Japanese FA Okada replaced him while he was out cold. Takeshi Okada has been (re)installed as Japan’s new manager, which seems a bit harsh, but given the circumstances was probably the right thing to do. Osim is still hospitalized, but the good news is that he survived and hopefully he’ll live to see plenty more football matches.