Begic, from Bosnia to Milan with the Scudetto dream: “Finally we have seen how we can be”

There is a Vero Volley that is aiming for the second Scudetto final in its history (Wednesday the beauty in Scandicci, after yesterday’s 3-1 success in game 2 against Savino Del Bene) and if it does so it has to thank Edina Begic , who from the bench to the field made a valuable contribution to the victory of the Lombard girls. The clock goes back, season 15/16, A2 championship. The then Saugella Monza, third, hosts Soverato, second. It ends 3-0 for the team of the Vero Volley consortium, a match that after a balanced start becomes without history. Because, on 15 all of the first set, a young and good Bosnian spiker under the Calabrians, who has just arrived from the NCAA, comes out due to injury. There are already many ingredients for Edina Begic’s future career: there is a facility that will be her home for a long time (Begic will arrive in Monza the following summer, with the team promoted to A1). And there is the difficulty of an injury that slows it down. “Every injury is a trauma for an athlete” explains Begic, born on October 9, 1992, who has played all the A1 seasons of Vero Volley except for the past one. “I’ve always thought about looking ahead, about the passion and joy it gives me to go back to the gym to train and play.”

Ups and downs

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And so, after the many shoulder and knee problems, and a season lived on the sidelines, between a physical recovery to consolidate and competition in a team that aims high, here are two excellent entries in the two championship semi-final matches against Scandicci which mark the series. “The season was long and fluctuating, at times, in game 2 with Scandicci for example, we saw the team we can be. We’re sorry we dropped out of the Champions League, but sometimes you can’t express yourself also because there are strong opponents. In January I was in a negative moment, I couldn’t do things I used to do. I worked on myself, helped by clubs and teammates, I wondered if I was still a good player. Even the words of my teammates after game 2 moved me “.

From Bosnia

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And certainly there were difficulties in Edina’s life. The family is from Bratunac, a few kilometers from Srebrenica, the scene of a massacre against Bosnian Muslims in 1995, the largest stab wound in the heart of Europe since the Second World War. The Bosnian war directly marked the life of the Begic family: Edina was born in 1992 in Tuzla, a place where her mother had taken refuge (since May, waiting for Eidna and with her 3-year-old son Edin) after being driven from her land and had to leave her soldier husband. As a young man, she chooses her destiny: Edina begins with basketball (the only possible activity in Tuzla), then when she is 11 years old she returns to Bratunac, there is only a volleyball team, and, pushed by her friends, she begins. “I played with the older ones, I remember the difficulties, but I immediately fell in love. I was in a small town, over the years our group of friends has made that club grow”. The last year of high school is complicated, but her compatriot Amila Barakovic, with whom she trains, pushes her to try the American way, to study and play at the same time.

The college

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He arrives, therefore, at the University of Arkansas Little Rock. under the orders of coach Van Compton. “A totally new world. I was alone, the years of returning home, even if the war was over, were marked by the destruction that the war had left. Seeing such a large and tidy building at the college made a great impression on me. I owe a lot to Van, who has been a mum to me, and to assistant Todd Bourdo: thanks to them I made it.” The spiker rewrites all university records (partly still unbeaten), she passes the first round of the NCAA tournament (first and only time in the history of the university). But volleyball still doesn’t seem like her path. “I wanted to stop for a master’s degree after graduating in International Business. My Serbian attorney tells me that if I gave up trying to pursue a volleyball career, I would have regrets forever.” The offers arrive from Puerto Rico, Germany and France, Edina chooses Soverato and arrives in Monza. In the debut season she starts on the bench, but when Edina becomes the starter, the team takes off and obtains salvation.

In Monza

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The rest is history leading up to today: “Monza is my second home. I feel at home here, even with the club, which has made me grow so much. And I’ve also spent most of my life here.” Finding love too, in Pieter Verhees, Belgian centre-back, met when they both played at Monza. Only last year did she leave to play for Dinamo Moscow: “A difficult year, in terms of adjusting to my style of play, made me grow. When the issue with Ukraine begins, however, I feel my family is very apprehensive. still a war in the middle. Perhaps something enters my head, I hurt myself on March 5 (rupture of the crusader, Ed.), a few weeks after the start of military operations”. You immediately return to Monza, work, leave again, for the umpteenth time, looking ahead. And yesterday the race 2 which sanctions the umpteenth rebirth. “I had never played with such a full system, it was exciting.” And Begic stopped the most to sign autographs and take pictures, perhaps thinking of when she too had idols (Sheilla Castro and Tai Aguero). And now, the championship final to be won on Wednesday in game 3: “Yesterday I saw the team I know, which always plays, never stops playing, never gives up”. It was the Vero Volley Milano team, but perhaps also the story and life of Edina Begic.