A story with a handball legend, part two.
During the first episode of (Un)Success of the Champion, Nikola Karabatić talked about the road to the top, why he feels like a Yugoslav and a Frenchman, and whether he misses handball...
Continuing his conversation with Slaven Bilić, he also touched on his brother Luka Karabatic, had a message for young athletes, and spoke about one of the greatest rivalries between Ivan Balić and himself.
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When it comes to his brother Luka, also a great handball player, Nikola highlighted the strong bond, emphasizing that there was never any rivalry between them - on the contrary, the goal was to succeed together.
Before he dedicated himself to handball professionally, Luka trained in tennis, so Nikola had a different vision of his brother's sporting future.
"When he was 13, 14 years old, he was number one in France. I dreamed of watching him at Roland Garros, Wimbledon. I watched tennis, I watched Goran Ivanišević win Wimbledon, we were big fans. He returned to handball when he was 19 and then we created a new dream - to play together one day. That was incredible. There was never any rivalry between us. Whenever he won, won something in tennis, it would be as if I had won. That combination when we played together was so strong," Karabitić emphasized.
Discipline makes you better.
An unavoidable topic is always Ivano Balić, the Croatian maestro and the man who marked an era of world handball from Karabatic.
Ivan was said to be Mozart, and Bilić asked Karabatic if he was Wagner.
"With Ivan, everything seemed easy, like some kind of inspiration. When he played, it looked a bit like basketball. He would score goals without you knowing how he scored them. Just like when you watch Roger Federer - everything looks easy. There's something from Lionel Messi too. I'm maybe more like Novak Djokovic, Cristiano Ronaldo. You have work, discipline, daily motivation to learn something new every day, to be better, to reach your limit and to go even further than your mental and physical limit. In that respect, I feel closer to Djokovic. You can see how he gives his best every day, the discipline that pushes him to be the best," explained the legendary handball player.
About his evolution - from a young player who shook the nets to maturing where he made the other teammates around him better...
"Basically, it's great, because sport teaches you that... One time you're world champion, the next you lose in the Cup to a team from the second league. Sport teaches you that that's life. One time you're everything, the next time you're nothing - sport teaches you that you have to constantly develop and adapt, adjust to new situations."
Until I was 37, I thought I was a machine, and then I could have died.
He says that he learned a big life lesson from the injury he suffered at the age of 37.
"When you get injured, it's also a blow to the ego. Until I was 37, I never got seriously injured. I thought I was a machine, that I could go through my entire career without a major injury," Karabatic recalled.
And then...
"I'm coming back from a break due to Covid, I was in the best shape of my life for four months - and my cruciate ligament is damaged. Two weeks after the surgery I get thrombosis and pulmonary embolism. That also lowers your ego, you see that you're nothing, I could have died. And you learn from that, and you come back with a different energy, you're more positive, happy that you can still play handball. That's a different energy, a motivation. Either you learn from the moments you experienced and that brought you down and made you stronger, maybe not as a player, but as a person, or you don't learn and it will certainly happen again - throughout your career and life as you have opportunities to learn and become even better as a player and a person."
Failure? Champions League with PSG and the quarterfinals of the 2024 Olympics.
He also touched on sporting failures. Nikola singled out not winning the Champions League with Paris Saint-Germain in 2017, as well as the defeat to Germany at the 2024 Olympic Games, which also ended his great career.
"To lose like that in the quarterfinals - you're leading by two points with 15 seconds left in the game... When I was a kid, I wanted to be a national team player and one day be the best player in the world. Now that I look at everything I've achieved, I can't and shouldn't complain. Although it's hard to end my career with such a defeat in front of all of France, in front of 28.000 people, family, friends, everyone is here - it was so hard, but at the same time, I experienced so many beautiful moments that I wouldn't change it."
How Karabatić views the treatment of handball in the world of sports.
"It was nothing in France, but that was exactly my motivation, to raise handball in France through what we won and how we played, so that people would follow and love it. That was my goal and it was always an additional motivation for me. Of course I would like handball to be bigger, to have more treatment, but at the same time I like that handball is a sport that may not be the most famous in the world, I like that side of handball - handball is not a business. Handball is a sport. You can make a living from it. You will never be a billionaire or a millionaire, but you will learn a lot from it in life - handball creates good people."
He also had a strong message for children and parents.
"Sport is important and I think that sport is a school of life... Sport develops you both mentally and physically. If you succeed as a top athlete, of course that's great, but you should play sports. All children should play not just one sport but different sports to see what they like, to learn discipline and to learn to have fun," concluded Karabatić.
You can also catch up on the first part of the show at the link below.
Bonus video:
