BIRTH
CHANGES
ADULT
FUTURE
1994
I was born in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It’s a small country in Eastern Europe with a beautiful landscape, characterized by lovely hills and mountains, forests, crystal clear lakes and pure fresh air.
But in 1994, when I was born, this beautiful country was torn by the Bosnian War.
The war ended when I was three years old, and the following crisis affected all of us. The infrastructure was ruined, the economy totally stagnated. We had to survive day by day and there were no place for childhood dreams.
In 2000, when I was six years old, I got the great chance
to start playing soccer at NK KRIVAJA.
I loved it from the start.
1994
2009
I’m thankful I could live my dream during this hard time. But to start a professional soccer career, I had to leave Bosnia.
In 2009, I came to Germany. My first soccer team was Eintracht Frankfurt. It was hard in the beginning, because language barriers became evident and I missed my old team. In my former team I learned: soccer games result from team performance, and strength requires symbiotic team play. Now I had to learn
that there is a strong competition between the players of a team.
It took time to understand the soccer system in Germany. So I received my player license later than others – at the age of 18. For this reason I missed three years of league games for my DFB profile despite of having trained with the same team. This is difficult to explain to agents.
2009
2012
There is a nice citation I remember from school:
“Some people come into a dark room and start working. They try to locate the reason for the darkness, find culprits and create a plan to reduce the darkness step by step. And then someone comes in and turns on the light.”
In sports, it’s similar. Some trainers work with you in different ways to improve your technique, to strengthen your condition etc. Then a trainer comes along and chooses you for his team, because he sees your benefit for the team.
2012
2015
When I was young, I learned: Giving up is never a solution! Goals can only be reached with persistence and courage. Again and again and again.
Friends and family about Elmir:
„He has clear objectives and power to work persistently to reach them.
He is charming, has a very positive personality and a powerful charisma.“
Elmir about himself:
„You’ll never know your limits and you won’t reach your targets,
if you haven’t tried everything to reach them.“
My favorite movie quote (ROCKY):
It ain’t over till it’s over.
2015