Then he looks at his players and shouts that he can’t understand how they can’t do something that a four-year-old can. That was, I realised later, really humiliating for them, but I was really proud that day.
I could give you countless stories about my father and handball and so on. People always talk a lot about my father because he was the athlete and the obvious focus in the family. But my mother, Radmila, was as important to the family.
She was a real mother, like in the movies, when the dad plays with the kids and the mother is in the shadows, putting oil in the gears. With one look, you could understand what she wanted.
She was always telling my sister and I that if we listened, if we were good at school, then we could be anything we wanted. She instilled a lot of discipline in our family.
I still think of getting a tattoo of one of her mantras, that has become one of mine over time : “You live like you think”. It means that if you think you can achieve something, if you fight for it, then it’s likely you will succeed.
And my parents did fight for what they had. See, I had a very happy childhood. There was always food on the table, and nothing to really complain about.
It might sound harsh, though, but having been a “Yugo” kid in Switzerland in the nineties, I know what it means to eat sh*t. You had to be careful about what you said or how you acted all the time, you always had to prove yourself a little bit more than the others.
I experienced that with my father. He signed in Bern and he was the only professional player in the club, whereas all the other guys were amateurs. If something went wrong, it was always his fault, because he was the big star from Yugoslavia.
My parents often told me that when I would grow up, I would understand. And now, I do.
My parents’ education taught me how to survive, not to have pity for yourself. If you are not a killer in your head, then somebody will take your seat.
The education I received relied on a few things; one of them was to respect the home, and that what you would not do at home, you would not do elsewhere, either.
Home has always been a safe place for my family and me.
It was a really down-to-earth education. My parents taught me that I had to be the best because nothing would be given to me. That’s the way it is in Switzerland, if you miss your exam three times, you are out of the uni. So you have to work to achieve things.
While we are talking about family, I do have to give a big shout-out to my sister Katarina.
Even though she is eight years older than me, we have a very fusional relationship. She is my complete opposite, physically and as a person, but we have a fusional relationship. For instance, she is not interested at all in sports, she always needs to move and do things, while I am calmer, more introverted. We do balance each other perfectly.
