Osim was head coach of the Japan national team, before suffering a stroke in November 2007 and subsequently leaving the post.

In April 2011, FIFA announced that he had become president of the interim committee to run the Football Association of Bosnia and Herzegovina after the country was suspended from all international competitions.

[8] Discontinuities only occurred when he lived in Japan during his managerial career there and when he visited Sarajevo in his function as advisor for the Football Association of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

[3][9] Osim made his debut for Yugoslavia in an October 1964 Olympic Games match against Morocco, and has earned a total of 16 caps, scoring eight goals.

[3][13] Yugoslavia qualified for UEFA Euro 1992, but Osim resigned on 23 May 1992; as his family in Sarajevo faced bombardment during the Bosnian War.

"My country doesn't deserve to play in the European Championship," said Osim, "On the scale of human suffering, I cannot reconcile events at home with my position as national manager.

Osim's home national team, Bosnia and Herzegovina, had to wait further 23 years to qualify for their first major football competition, having done so for the 2014 FIFA World Cup held in Brazil.

On 21 July 2006, Osim was appointed head coach of the Japan national team, replacing Brazilian manager and former player Zico, who had resigned after the end of the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

At the 2007 AFC Asian Cup, he failed to lead Japan to its third successive title, losing to Saudi Arabia in the semi-finals and to South Korea in the third place play-off on penalties.

[17] During the tournament, Osim reduced his interpreter to tears during a dressing room tirade, in which he called his players "amateurs" following a 1–1 draw against Qatar,[18] and refused to watch the penalty shoot-out against Australia in the quarter-finals, saying "I didn't see it because it was bad for my heart.

On 16 November 2007, Osim suffered a stroke at his residence in Chiba, Japan while watching a friendly match between Austria and England on television.

[19] He was in a coma for almost three weeks during which time he was visited by notable people of world football like Michel Platini and Sepp Blatter among others.

He was then moved from an intensive care unit to a general ward at the Juntendo University hospital in Urayasu, Chiba on 23 December.

[20] On 1 May 2022, Osim died at his home in Graz, Austria, five days short of his 81st birthday, after years of health issues following his stroke.

[28] That same month, the street Zvornička 21 in Sarajevo, where Željezničar's home ground Grbavica stadium is located, was renamed to Ivica Osim Boulevard.

[29] Željezničar Strasbourg Yugoslavia Individual Partizan Panathinaikos Sturm Graz JEF United Chiba Japan