This is me: Maja Savic

THIS IS ME: Maja Savić

My whole family loved sports. My father took me from an early age to watch boxing matches, basketball, handball, football, all sports. My sister Marijana started to prepare for her school's cross tournament, and as I was always following her, I started athletics at the age of eight.

I was talented, and I believe I would be successful in it. I even had an opportunity to move to Belgrade and make a new step in athletics.

I think children should have the basics of athletics before starting any sport. Motor skills, body shaping, proper breathing and proper running. Everything that is essential for any sport you can have from it. Today there are many athletes who do not know how to run properly.

However, I really thought I was not meant for individual sports. When I was 12, the women's handball club was reinstated in our hometown of Berane and I started going to training. For me, it was really interesting, to be in company and have friends, compared to athletics.

One thing that will forever be in my mind was our first handball match. I still didn't know the rules and when the opponent ran towards me, out of fear, I threw the ball back to our goalkeeper. Of course, she wasn't expecting it and I 'scored a goal'. I think that is something everyone remembers and I always think of it with a smile. But, as for everything in life, I gave 100 per cent in training, for sport and strived to be better each day.

That's how I am. Stubborn and persistent, just like my astrological sign – Taurus. When I aim for something, I must achieve it but not at any cost or anyone's expense. Just with hard work and my own quality. Sometimes when I look back, I am surprised at how much strength I had in some situations. My path made me like that, and I do believe it had a big influence on what kind of player I became.

Two years after I started playing handball I moved to Podgorica and joined Buducnost. I think that was the right call at the time. In Berane, I was living with my parents and two sisters in a 29m² apartment. We didn't have much, but we had each other and big love, something we cherish to this day. So, moving away from them was not an easy decision.

Coach Dobrislav Vujovic and club president Rade Djurdjic came to talk with my father to convince him to let me come to Buducnost. I was showing talent, and because of athletics I was a good runner. They used to say I ran like a gazelle, and people from Buducnost noticed it.

My father Prvoslav wasn't sure if he should let me go and went to talk with my grandfather Sava about it. My uncle was also against it, but my grandfather is the reason why I am here where I am. He said to my father: “You never know what time will come. Today, you are providing food for her, maybe tomorrow she will do it for you.”

That's how it all started. And from that key decision, my whole family became my biggest support in handball, through everything. And later in life, my husband David joined them and they backed me on this path to success.

I spent 14 years in Buducnost and had the right handball development. Through all ups and downs, some of the most beautiful memories are connected with Buducnost. The start, however, was not easy. We even didn't have enough money to pay for a bus ticket, so I was walking every day for 45 minutes, two times a day to get to training. All that is one part of the success we reached as I fulfilled all my dreams here.

During my time in Buducnost, when I was 20, I became a mother to Vanesa. I did live for sport from the start but motherhood in a way also pointed me in one direction. My family always come first, and handball follows. That was my guiding point and when you have clear goals, nothing is impossible. I couldn't do it without my family.

However, when I was 28 I was still missing the EHF Champions League title, something I wanted to achieve in my career. After playing five semi-finals, I knew we were missing some key elements to reach the top. I had many options for leaving Buducnost but somehow I always decided to stay. I was never driven by money, I was always chasing titles.

I had many offers from Denmark but my colleague Bojana Popovic (then Petrovic) was already in Slagelse and had won the EHF Cup and the Champions League, and one day she said that Anja Andersen would like me to join them.

Bojana and I played in Buducnost, played in the FR Yugoslavia national team and later in the Montenegro national team, and we had a very good connection on the court. The two of us could play with each other with our eyes closed. In a way, she convinced me to join them, and even I was surprised that I decided to leave Podgorica.

With Slagelse I won my first two EHF Champions League titles. The first one was very special to me as I finally achieved something I was dreaming about. It was an eruption of emotions after two great matches against Kometal Skopje. The second came after an even more exciting game against Lada when we were convincing at home, celebrating the title in front of our fans. To have two European titles in a short period of time is hard to describe.

When I was signing a contract with Slagelse, Anja wanted me to sign a two-year contract. However, I wanted to do just one year, win the Champions League and retire. However, just a few months later I prolonged it for an additional two years. She said to me, “if you plan to retire, it doesn't matter when your contract will expire”.

For me, it was a challenge to play in Denmark, where some of the best handball is played. I spent seven beautiful years there in the end. I fell in love with the country and culture. And I received much more than just handball. My daughter Vanesa speaks Danish and English fluently, I learned the language and made friends. And that is the beauty of sport.

I am proud of my daughter today. She grew up to be a strong but humble woman. At the beginning, she didn't want to do handball but with time, especially living in Denmark, experiencing matches and fans cheering, she started playing. In the beginning, I even didn't watch her matches. I wanted to be her support as a mother, regardless of my handball path.

She decided her life will also include handball and I will always support her. It wasn't easy as she was always compared to me, but she was strong and persistent. I never wanted to interfere, even today, when she joined Buducnost again, with me being an assistant coach. She fights for herself and if it's meant to be, she will succeed. The only thing I told her, is whatever she does, to be dedicated to it 100 per cent.

My story with Slagelse came to an end in 2008 and in a way, the project moved to Copenhagen. Some players left the club, some stayed. Despite our desire to achieve the same success, handball-wise it was not the same as it was and maybe Anja didn't have the same approach to handball as before. FCK Handball won the Cup Winners' Cup but maybe we could have done more.

Soon, I moved to Viborg and I thought I would rejoin Bojana again. However, she moved back to Buducnost and I stayed. We didn't have a good season and I was not satisfied. I had different plans, and to be honest, at that time I planned to move permanently to Denmark to have more options, and because of my daughter.

However, the death of my father changed everything. Because of my family and my mother, who asked me to come back to Montenegro, we packed our things and returned home. I thought I will retire at that point but once again I was convinced to stay one more year in Buducnost: a year of a project of winning the Champions League title and making a success with the national team.

In a way, I learned in Denmark what was missing for Buducnost to win the title. We learned about fast handball, resin, different tactics and different approaches to the sport. When both Bojana and I returned back home, I just knew we would finally do it. We wanted to transfer knowledge to the younger generation and implement everything we had been missing in handball.

The Olympic Games and being an Olympian is a dream of every athlete. I wanted to give myself a chance for it. To end my career at 36 with two amazing successes for my own country. To write history with Buducnost and the national team. If someone told me to walk to the Olympic village then, I would do it.

Winning the EHF Champions League title with Buducnost on home ground, beating Györ with our people, in front of the fans who were by our side since the beginning, was something indescribable. A moment that will be forever carved in my heart. My whole family was there to witness it and only one person was missing for it to be a perfect picture – my father. But I knew he would be proud of me and what I achieved from that moment when he let me move to Podgorica.

Every medal with the national team, every title, every celebration has its special story and place, but what we achieved in 2012 is the crown of everything.

People in Montenegro lived for sport, unfortunately today there are not many fans in the stands. I hope they will return and I will fight to get them back. I thought our success at the EHF EURO 2022 when the women's national team won the bronze medal, the first medal after 2012, will bring them back. I will never give up working, forming players and returning fans to the stands.

I don't regret any moments in my career. I gave everything to handball and I still do. Handball really fulfilled me and I am proud I achieved everything that I wanted.

I never thought I would be a coach one day. When I retired, I thought I would enjoy more free time with my family and live through some moments I missed because of my career.

But I always strived to be a role model for younger players, how to live and work hard in sports. In a way, people saw a good teacher in me. Wherever I played, other players approached me and asked for advice. Knowing that, after a few months, I got a call from Predrag Boskovic to join the younger national team in Israel. I procrastinated a little but finally agreed, and that is how it started.

One day from being a player you find yourself in different shoes, you need to write down training sessions and what to do with each player. I spent five hours writing it down. I believe every coach should have an individual approach to each player, and have specific parts of training. I always said quality should be above quantity when it comes to training. That is my guide in my coaching career. I wish that all of the players I train become successful one day, no matter where they come from. On the other hand, I am very honest and if I think someone is better at another sport or is not for it, I will say it.

I am also a very empathetic person. However, Dusan Vujosevic, a basketball coach, said in one coaching seminar: “Be empathetic to the people who want to learn.” I'm trying that approach, to give myself and all my effort to the ones who are ready to learn.

I believe you can learn something from every person. Just as you can learn something from even the worst book, that's how you can learn from every coach. And I tried to learn something from each coach I had during my career. But somehow I remember most my first coaches – handball coach Pero Barjaktarovic in my home town and Dobrislav Vujovic in Buducnost, and of course athletics coach Misko Pajkovic. Later came Sasa Panov and Bogosav Peric.

Those were coaches who were doing an amazing job during my handball development and were doing specific things that helped me. I was lucky enough to have Natali Ciganovka and Mirsada Ganic in the same position in Buducnost, and was lucky enough that I could ask them for advice and learn from them too. I was the kind of player who always asked for something more, for one shot more, to learn something new, something I think today is missing among younger generations.

Children today have everything available and they have more of an easy path. We as parents are also guilty of it. We need to leave room for young people to fight for something on their own. You value most what you achieve on your own. Let them live their life, but always be there for them and have time for them.

Handball, social skills, friendships, motor skills, you can't learn them from social media, you need to go out. Shoot every shot on the court, play in the park, hang out with people and be yourself. Don't act and pretend to be something you are not.

To players: Don't give up on the first obstacle. Be persistent and be focused on your goal, it will be awarded one day.

I know I was. I am grateful that I could achieve everything I wanted. And that I could be there and help my family because of handball.

Maja Savić
March 2022