TOKYO, Dec 25: Former Japan coach Ivica Osim has moved out of a hospital intensive care unit to start rehabilitation about five weeks after a major stroke that cost him his job, a football official said on Tuesday.

“Transfers are common in football,” Japan Football Association executive director Kozo Tajima quoted the 66-year-old Bosnian as quipping of his move.

Osim came out of a coma three weeks ago and had stayed on at a university hospital near his home before moving to a rehabilitation centre on Monday, Tajima said.

Tajima informed Osim for the first time that he had been replaced as national coach by homegrown tactician Takeshi Okada, who led Japan to their World Cup finals debut in 1998.

“We could communicate with each other better than I had expected,” Tajima said. “He is such a brilliant person that he must be objectively analysing the situation.”

Osim, who led the former Yugoslavia to the 1990 World Cup quarter-finals, collapsed at home in the early morning on November 16 after watching an English Premiership match, according to the association.—AFP