Quick Facts
CancerBiography
Ivan "Ivica" Horvat (16 July 1926 – 27 August 2012) was a Croatian footballer and manager who played for Yugoslavia. In 2004, he received the Croatian Olympic Committee's Matija Ljubek Award.
Player's career
Horvat played from 1945 until 1957 for Dinamo Zagreb. In 1957 he moved to Germany to Eintracht Frankfurt, where he stayed until the end of his career.
Honours
- Yugoslav champion: 1948, 1954
- Yugoslav Cup: 1951
- German champion: 1959
- Silver medal Olympic Games: 1952
National team
In the Yugoslavia national team Horvat appeared from 1946 until 1956 in 60 fixtures. He took part in the World Cup in 1950 and 1954.
He also played with the Yugoslav team at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki and won the silver medal. In the final, Yugoslavia lost to the rising star of the 1950s, Hungary.
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 the Paraguayan Carlos Gamarra hit between his own posts against England after three minutes.
Managing career
From 1961 until 1979 Horvat worked as manager, in the beginning as assistant at Eintracht Frankfurt 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 Dinamo Zagreb he won the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, the predecessor of the UEFA Cup, in 1967 in the final matches against Leeds United (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, winning the DFB-Pokal in 1972 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 he was fired in March. Thereupon Horvat finished his managing career.
Honours
- Inter-Cities Fairs Cup 1967
- DFB-Pokal 1972