'He did Stacky tight': When Hibs witnessed first hand the rise of Europe's current most in-form player

Atalanta’s Josip Ilicic first came to prominence against Yogi’s Hibees

Josip Ilicic celebrates scoring for Maribor against Hibs.

Here’s Josip Ilicic, he skins Ian Murray wide on the right, cuts inside Kevin McBride and arcs a stunning strike from the angle of the penalty area beyond Paul Hanlon, over the helpless Graham Stack and in off the underside of the crossbar. Slovenia’s brightest prospect, aged 22, gives Maribor the lead with his first goal in European competition.

With the mercurial Ilicic having been arguably the world’s outstanding footballer in the early, pre-shutdown months of 2020, and fresh from his four-goal haul in Atalanta’s history-making Champions League victory away to Valencia last week, this grim period of footballing cold storage seems like an opportune time to recall the night the ever-improving veteran first announced himself on the continental stage, against Hibs just short of ten years ago.

Ten years ago

In July 2010, the Easter Road side, having qualified for Europe for the first time in five years after finishing fourth in the SPL the previous season under John Hughes, were pitted against Slovenian side Maribor in the third qualifying round of the Europa League. Maribor were managed at the time by Darko Milanic and their two main dangermen were 26-year-old Brazilian striker Marcos Tavares and Ilicic, a highly-regarded 22-year-old playmaker who had only joined the club a few weeks previously for a nominal fee from Interblock, who had just been relegated from Slovenia’s top flight.

Remarkably, Ilicic would play only 11 games for Maribor before landing a €2.3 million, life-changing move to Italian Serie A side Palermo later that summer. Two of those games were against Hibs, and in the first leg, in Stadion Ljudski on July 29, 2010, he announced his arrival on the scene with a breathtaking long-range double which paved the way for a 3-0 home win and a 6-2 aggregate success for the Slovenians.

His first, as described earlier in this article, came in the 31st minute. His second, which was even better, came in the 52nd minute when he seized on a loose pass from David Wotherspoon and chipped the ball audaciously over Stack from around 25 yards out. His impact on that one-sided first leg was underlined when he set up Tavares for Maribor’s third.

That tie-defining double against Hibs was the first of four goals Ilicic would score in his two memorable months with Maribor and the first of 21 he would go on to score in European competitions, the most recent of which came on that surreal night in the Mestalla last Tuesday when no fans were present to witness the 32-year-old become the oldest player to net four goals in a Champions League tie and the first player to hit four in an away match in the knockout phase of Europe’s most prestigious competition.

‘We’d be right up against it’

“I remember (assistant manager) Brian Rice went over to see Maribor and he came back with his report basically saying we’d be right up against it,” Hughes told the Evening News. “He pinpointed Ilicic and Tavares as the two to watch. I knew it would be tough for us but at the same time you don’t want to tell the players that in case you frighten them. We left (Anthony) Stokes and (Derek) Riordan out to go with a five across the midfield, more of a working team, to try and keep ourselves in the tie. We told the likes of Kevin McBride and Liam Miller to get close to Ilicic.

“But everyone knew after the first leg that we’d been up against a real top-class player. He was magnificent. He drifted all around the No.10 position, dropped back into midfield, off the left ... he was the one their players were trying to get the ball to. I remember his second goal in particular. He went to strike it and just put a wee dink on it. He did Stacky tight, it was pure class. On the flight home I remember speaking to Chipper (Rice) about it and questioning whether we had done it right and whether we should have had more of a go, and he said ‘listen, they’re a better side than us, simple as that’. We went with an approach of trying to keep ourselves in the tie, but with Ilicic scoring those two goals we just couldn’t do that.”

Hibs regained some pride with a valiant second-leg performance in which they lost 3-2 and new Dutch midfielder Edwin De Graaf scored twice, but Maribor marched on to the play-off round where they would face Palermo. The Slovenians lost 5-3 on aggregate but Ilicic, who scored in the home leg, impressed the Italian side enough that they moved to sign him for a seven-figure fee just a few days later.

Ten years on ...

Almost a decade later, the Slovenian internationalist has carved out an impressive career for himself in Serie A with Palermo, Fiorentina and, most significantly, Atalanta, where he has become the fulcrum of arguably Europe’s most exciting team despite being into his 30s. This writer was privileged to be present inside Torino’s Stadio Olimpico when Ilicic scored a stunning hat-trick featuring an outrageous goal from the centre-circle in a 7-0 Atalanta win in late January.

As things stand, Ilicic is the highest scorer of any player in the top five leagues across Europe in 2020, with 14 goals in all competitions this calendar year. For context, his fellow 32-year-old Lionel Messi has nine and Cristiano Ronaldo has 13. “Everybody peaks at different times,” said Hughes of Ilicic’s belated blooming into European superstar. “When a player plays like Ilicic did against us, you always keep an eye on them to see where they are and what they’re up to. It was great to watch him getting the four goals last week. You could tell that night against us that he was going to be a magnificent player.”