“I am learning that death cannot be only negative.” Nikola Karabatic (Nis, Serbia; 40 years old), one of the greatest in the history of handball, speaks thus of that “small death” that every athlete faces with retirement. Which is his turn now. This is his last season, with the Games as the final horizon of a fierce and triumphant career. “The positive thing is that I am going to be reborn with other goals, it will be another life, and that makes me very excited,” adds the Frenchman from PSG, who this Thursday hosts Barcelona, one of his former teams (2013-15), in the first leg. of the Champions League quarterfinals (8:45 p.m., DAZN and Esport 3; the second leg, on May 2 at the same time at the Palau). “I made more friends there than anywhere else,” he points out on the other end of the phone while he recounts a unique career and reflects on the future. A goodbye that joins that of the Dane Mikkel Hansen (36 years old), another giant in retreat.
“Everyone asks me what I’m going to do next and I answer that the most important thing is not that, because I will find something that I am passionate about, but the mental process of changing my chip,” Karabatic begins on a subject that he has very much chewed on. Since he announced his farewell last summer, this is, he says, his decompression course. “I don’t want to see it as if I have to achieve another record or score as many goals, but rather get ready to leave the competitive mind behind. Because in my second life I don’t want to live with her anymore. It is important in high-level sport, but I have realized that on a day-to-day basis it is not so good. It causes you a lot of stress. I don’t want to start my new stage living off what I’ve done, I don’t want to show up somewhere and talk about the past. I don’t want to be with my ego all the time. Maybe it’s because I have more than fulfilled all my dreams,” reflects this center back and winger who has always been distinguished by his voracity, protagonist of many duels on the edge with Spain, and often the executioner of the Hispanics. “My idol when I was little was Enric Masip and I played against him,” he confesses while remembering David Barrufet, Rafa Guijosa, Iñaki Urdangarin, Talant Dujshebaev and Arpad Sterbik.
When I was younger, if others didn’t have my demand to win, I could get very nervous.
With the French national team, he has won 17 medals (three Olympic gold medals, four world championships and as many European medals), and with his clubs (Montpellier, Barça, Kiel and PSG) he has won three Champions Leagues and twenty national leagues in an unfathomable track record. which also includes the best player on the planet award three times (2007, 2014 and 2016). “Sometimes, I have still been difficult for the coaches because I always wanted to win and for the rest to think the same. Now I’m calmer, but when I was younger, if I saw that others didn’t have that demand, I could get very nervous and angry,” Niko admits.
He was born in the former Yugoslavia to a Croatian mother and a Serbian father, although within a few years the family moved to France. His father, Branko, a goalkeeper in the eighties in his country, was the key to everything, he explains: “At eight years old, he was my coach. He was never the typical Eastern father, hard on me, but since he was my idol, he wanted me to be very proud of me.” From there, he assures, comes his competitive spirit. “I thought about winning the Champions League and the World Cup once. But at 18 I was with the national team, at 19 I was champion of the Champions League, at 22 the European Championship, at 23 I was named the best player in the world… Everything came very soon,” recalls Karabatic, who is among the best handball players.
At 18 I was with France, at 19 I was champion of the Champions League, at 22 the European Championship, at 23 I was chosen the best in the world… It all came very soon
Where is it located in history? “If I respond with my ego… What I think is different from what I let myself say. Knowing that I am in the question makes me feel proud. When I’m on the court, of course I think I’m the best, but when I go out, I will never say it because it would be a lack of respect towards other very good people,” he concedes about a career that presents a dark point: the conviction in 2017 for his involvement. in a case of illegal betting and match-fixing.
Since 2015 at PSG, a club that has also not won the Champions League in handball, his 1.96 meter frame has experienced the great transformation of this sport. “Now it’s spectacular, everything goes very fast, although we could do much more to make TV interested in it,” he warns. “We are not so agile to change norms. You need 10 years to implement them and then you know that they will last 20 years, even if they are not good. You have to try things. Maybe we need more timeouts for advertising, like in basketball. Those who decide are slow. I will always be ready to help if I see that the intentions are good,” says Karabatic, key to the great growth of the French League.
In handball we are not so agile to change rules if we don’t like them. You have to try things on TV
“Turning 40, the Games in Paris… The signs were there,” he comments on the moment chosen for goodbye. That, and a physical problem that made him shrink. In 2020, at 36 years old, he was able to return from a cruciate tear, but phlebitis put him in the mirror last year. “We were playing in the World Cup and I injured my foot. It didn’t seem like anything, but it bothered me a lot. And when I returned to my club in February, I got phlebitis. It was my third thrombosis. We saw that there was a genetic problem in the blood. It could be resolved with vitamins, without the need to take anticoagulants all my life, but I thought that it had been a big warning and that, if he returned, he would do one more season and that’s it,” says Niko Karabatic.
What he does not have in mind in the short term is to sit on a professional bench. “I have the ability, but I don’t want to. I see the impact it has on fitness. It is very stressful,” he indicates. “I want to experience life without competition. I have learned a lot from her, and I have realized that it is not the type of vision that you should always have,” concludes Karabatic, a few months after closing a career to remember at the age of 40. Leonidas asks for rest.
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