Ivan "Ivica" Horvat (16 July 1926 – 27 August 2012) was a Croatian and Yugoslav professional

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

player Player may refer to: Role or adjective * Player (game), a participant in a game or sport ** Gamer, a player in video and tabletop games ** Athlete, a player in sports ** Player character, a character in a video game or role playing game who i ...

and

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of organizations, whether businesses, nonprofit organizations, or a government bodies through business administration, nonprofit management, or the political science sub-field of public administra ...

. He spent most of his playing career in the 1940s and 1950s with

Dinamo Zagreb Građanski nogometni klub Dinamo Zagreb (), commonly referred to as simply Dinamo Zagreb (), is a Croatian professional football club based in Zagreb. Dinamo play their home matches at Stadion Maksimir. They are the most successful club in Cr ...

, with whom he won two

Federal League The Federal League of Base Ball Clubs, known simply as the Federal League, was an American professional baseball league that played its first season as a minor league in 1913 and operated as a "third major league", in competition with the e ...

championships of Yugoslavia and one Marshal Tito Cup. Regarded as one of the best defenders in the country at the time, Horvat also earned 60 international caps for

Yugoslavia , common_name = Yugoslavia , life_span = 1918–19921941–1945: World War II in Yugoslavia#Axis invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Axis occupation , p1 = Kingdom of SerbiaSerbia , flag_p ...

, and was part of the national squad at the

1950 Events January * January 1 – The International Police Association (IPA) – the largest police organization in the world – is formed. * January 5 – 1950 Sverdlovsk plane crash, Sverdlovsk plane crash: ''Aeroflot'' Lisunov Li-2 ...

and

1954 Events January * January 3 – The Italian broadcaster RAI officially begins transmitting. * January 7 – Georgetown–IBM experiment: The first public demonstration of a machine translation system is held in New York, at the head ...

World Cups, as well as the 1952 Olympics in

Helsinki Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipali ...

, where they were silver medalists. In 1957 he went abroad to join

Eintracht Frankfurt Eintracht Frankfurt e.V. () is a German professional sports club based in Frankfurt, Hesse. It is best known for its football club, which was founded on 8 March 1899. The club currently plays in the Bundesliga, the top tier of the German footb ...

, helping them win their first and only

West German West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republic after its capital c ...

championship in 1959 before retiring from active football. He spent the next two decades working in club management, notably leading Dinamo Zagreb to their historic 1966–67

Inter-Cities Fairs Cup The Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, most commonly referred to as the Fairs Cup and sometimes as the European Fairs Cup or Fairs Cities' Cup, was a European football competition played between 1955 and 1971. The Fairs Cup was the idea of FIFA vice-presid ...

win, and also winning the 1972

DFB-Pokal The DFB-Pokal (), also known as the German Cup in English language, English, is a German knockout Association football, football cup competition held annually by the German Football Association (DFB). Sixty-four teams participate in the competiti ...

with Schalke 04, the German club's first domestic trophy after a 14-year drought.

Playing career

Club

Horvat played from 1945 until 1957 for

. In his last season with Dinamo he also appeared in three matches for Zagreb XI in the

in 1956–57. In 1957 he moved to West Germany, to join

, where he stayed for two seasons. In his first season, under coach Adolf Patek, Eintracht finished third in the regional 1957–58 Oberliga Süd. In the following year, this time under Paul Oßwald, the club won the 1958–59 Oberliga title and went on to win the 1959 German football championship playoff, although Horvat did not play in the historic

final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final examination or finals, a test given at the end of a course of study or training *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which d ...

in Berlin, which pitched Eintracht against

Kickers Offenbach Offenbacher Fussball-Club Kickers, commonly known as Kickers Offenbach, is a German association football club in Offenbach am Main, Hesse. The club was founded on 27 May 1901 in the Rheinischer Hof restaurant by footballers who had left establis ...

coached by Horvat's former manager at Dinamo

Bogdan Cuvaj Bogdan Cuvaj (21 October 1905 – 23 July 1983) was a Croatian football (soccer), football manager in both club and international competition. Career He became the manager of Concordia Zagreb's youth side in 1926. After receiving managerial ...

International

In the Yugoslavia national team Horvat appeared from 1946 until 1956 in 60 fixtures. He took part in the

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the name is ...

and

. He also played with the Yugoslav team at the

1952 Summer Olympics The 1952 Summer Olympics (, ), officially known as the Games of the XV Olympiad (, ) and commonly known as Helsinki 1952, were an international multi-sport event held from 19 July to 3 August 1952 in Helsinki, Finland. After Japan declared in ...

in Helsinki and won the silver medal. In the final, Yugoslavia lost to the rising star of the 1950s,

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

. In the quarterfinals of the 1954 World Cup the ''Plavi'' lost due to an own goal from Horvat with 0–1. This goal was scored in the 10th minute and remained the fastest own goal in World Cup history until

2006 2006 was designated as the International Year of Deserts and Desertification. Events January * January 1– 4 – Russia temporarily cuts shipment of natural gas to Ukraine during a price dispute. * January 12 – A stampede during t ...

the

Paraguay Paraguay, officially the Republic of Paraguay, is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the Argentina–Paraguay border, south and southwest, Brazil to the Brazil–Paraguay border, east and northeast, and Boli ...

an Carlos Gamarra hit between his own posts against

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

after three minutes. His final international was a November 1956

friendly match An exhibition game (also known as a friendly, scrimmage, demonstration, training match, pre-season game, warmup match, or preparation match, depending at least in part on the sport) is a sport, sporting event whose prize money and impact on th ...

away against

Managerial career

From 1961 until 1979 Horvat worked as manager, in the beginning as assistant at

and became successor of the manager legend Paul Oßwald in 1964. But Frankfurt could not convince in the Bundesliga and Horvat was sacked in 1965. He was succeeded by Elek Schwartz. With

he won the

, the predecessor of the

UEFA Cup The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a Typography, typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star (heraldry), heraldic star. Computer scientists and Mathematici ...

, in

1967 Events January * January 1 – Canada begins a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of Canadian Confederation, Confederation, featuring the Expo 67 World's Fair. * January 6 – Vietnam War: United States Marine Corps and Army of ...

in the final matches against

Leeds United Leeds United Football Club is a professional football club based in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. The team compete in the Premier League, the top tier of the English football league system. Leeds United have won the League Championship th ...

(2–0, 0–0) after previous manager Branko Zebec left club. From 1971 he worked in the Bundesliga again, this time for

FC Schalke 04 Fußballclub Gelsenkirchen-Schalke 04 e. V., commonly known as Schalke 04 (), and abbreviated as S04 (), is a professional sports club from the Schalke district of Gelsenkirchen, North Rhine-Westphalia. It is best known for its football team, ...

, winning the

1972 Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using Solar time, ...

and becoming runner-up in the league. In 1975 Horvat moved to Rot-Weiss Essen, he stayed there until September 1976. In the beginning of the 1978–1979 Horvat returned to Schalke but due to the team's bad performances and an embarrassing derby loss against

Bochum Bochum (, ; ; ; ) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia. With a population of 372,348 (April 2023), it is the sixth-largest city (after Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund, Essen and Duisburg) in North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous German federa ...

he was fired in March. Thereupon Horvat finished his managing career.

Later life

In 2004 he received the

Croatian Olympic Committee The Croatian Olympic Committee (, HOO) is the non-profit organization representing Croatian athletes in the International Olympic Committee. The COC organizes Croatia's representatives at the Summer and Winter Olympic Games. It also organizes the ...

's Matija Ljubek Award. Horvat died on 27 August 2012, aged 86, while on vacation at his family's holiday home in Njivice on the island of

Krk Krk (; ; ; ; archaic German: ''Vegl'', ; ) is a Croatian island in the northern Adriatic Sea, located near Rijeka in the Bay of Kvarner and part of Primorje-Gorski Kotar county. Krk is tied with Cres as the largest Adriatic island, depending o ...

Honours

Player

;Dinamo Zagreb *Yugoslav league championship – Winner: 1947–48, 1953–54; runner-up: 1946–47,

1951 Events January * January 4 – Korean War: Third Battle of Seoul – Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul for the second time (having lost the Second Battle of Seoul in September 1950). * January 9 – The Government of the Uni ...

* Marshal Tito Cup – Winner:

; runner-up: 1950 ;Eintracht Frankfurt * West German championship – Winner:

1959 Events January * January 1 – Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance. * January 2 – Soviet lunar probe Luna 1 is the first human-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reaches the ...

;Yugoslavia * 1946 Balkan Cup: Runner-up *

1950 FIFA World Cup The 1950 FIFA World Cup was the 4th edition of the FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international Association football, football championship for senior men's national teams. It was held in Brazil from 24 June to 16 July 1950. It was the first Wo ...

: 5th place *

: Silver medal *

1954 FIFA World Cup The 1954 FIFA World Cup was the 5th edition of the FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international Association football, football tournament for senior men's national teams of the nations affiliated to FIFA. It was held in Switzerland from 16 June ...

: 8th place

Manager

;Dinamo Zagreb *

: 1966–67 ;Schalke 04 *

: 1971–72

References

External links

* *
archive

{{DEFAULTSORT:Horvat, Ivica 1926 births 2012 deaths Footballers from Sisak Men's association football central defenders Yugoslav men's footballers Yugoslavia men's international footballers 1950 FIFA World Cup players 1954 FIFA World Cup players Footballers at the 1952 Summer Olympics Olympic footballers for Yugoslavia Olympic silver medalists for Yugoslavia Medalists at the 1952 Summer Olympics Olympic medalists in football GNK Dinamo Zagreb players Eintracht Frankfurt players Yugoslav First League players Yugoslav expatriate men's footballers Expatriate men's footballers in West Germany Yugoslav expatriate sportspeople in West Germany Yugoslav football managers Eintracht Frankfurt managers GNK Dinamo Zagreb managers PAOK FC managers FC Schalke 04 managers Rot-Weiss Essen managers Bundesliga managers Yugoslav expatriate football managers Expatriate football managers in West Germany Expatriate football managers in Greece Yugoslav expatriate sportspeople in Greece