This is me: Ljubomir Vranjes

My family comes from Yugoslavia but emigrated to Sweden shortly before I was born because my father got a job at Volvo in Gothenburg. I grew up in Kortedala, which today would be called a problem neighbourhood on the outskirts of Gothenburg, at that time definitely not the nicest place in Sweden. But it was an environment in which I felt comfortable, I had my friends, many of whom also had Yugoslavian roots. We were well integrated.

In Kortedala there were some guys who stuck together, no matter what, a gang, and I was one of them. I not only played handball and football but also trained in kickboxing and taekwondo. We did a lot of things that weren't clean or legal. There was a lot of violence, unfortunately it was so bad that some of my friends died. And when I was 15 or 16 years old, the point came when I had to make a decision — for the gang or for another life, for the good path. And that's when handball honestly saved my life.

I had just moved from my first club Kortedala IF to the best Swedish club at the time, Redbergslids IK. I quickly found myself on the brink of my exclusion because I was late for training two or three times. My coach told me very emphatically that I was ruining my future if I didn't finally show more discipline. Otherwise, it would be over. That was the turning point. To this day, I've never been late for training again.

When I came to Redbergslids, I also had to make another decision — between football and handball. I was very talented in both sports. I also had offers from big Swedish football clubs to become a professional. My father was a football goalkeeper, he really wanted me to become a footballer after a handball coach had said: “You are good, but you're too small for handball’, and my father added: “You can earn more money in football.” He even wanted to give me my first car as a present if I became a professional footballer.

But I became a handball player. I think that was also part of my revolt against my parents, which is what you normally do as a 16-year-old boy. But it was also part of my character for another reason: I wanted to show everyone that even at 1.66 metres tall, you can be a good handball player. I wanted to prove it to everyone; I wanted to prove it to myself. I wanted to show that anything is possible if you believe in it and fight for it. This will always imprint my career.

But handball also hurt. Right in my first season at Redbergslids I got a lot of hits, mostly because of my height but also my playing style. Again, my parents thought I should be a footballer instead. In winter, it was too cold to play football, so I stayed with handball.

By the time I was 17, I had established myself so well that I was promoted to play in the men’s league for the first time. I made my debut as a wing, then also as a playmaker when we were shorthanded, and my coaches Ola Lie and Reine Pedersen gave me an incredible amount of confidence, for which I am still grateful to them today. I developed a style of play adapted to my height. In short: just go through, no matter how big or strong the defenders were. In my very first season with Redbergslids, we became Swedish champions, a feat we achieved a total of five times up to 1999.

The next highlight of my career was being called up to the Swedish national team: I got to play for the Bengan Boys, coached by the great Bengt Johansson. And there you're in a team with Magnus Wislander, Ola Lindgren, Staffan Olsson, Stefan Lövgren, all boys who were at least two metres tall. Even there, nobody looked at me because of my height, I had already made a name for myself in the league. Everyone accepted that, and what's more, Bengt Johansson's best quality was that he improved the strengths of each individual player and integrated them into the team, he was a great leader of this great group of players.

The foundation for my handball knowledge was laid at Redbergslids, Bengt Johansson took it to another level. He gave this little guy from Kortedala a chance to play international, and I'm very grateful for that.

And if you look at today's generation of players with Luc Steins or Erik Balenciaga, it's quite normal. Handball has evolved, it's not just about size. But when I look back 25 years, I'm still surprised at how it worked for me back then.

Even today, I'm still often contacted and asked for help by players who are my size, or by parents whose children don't play at the club because the coach says they're too small. I'm always happy to help, encourage them and give them a few tips, because I can't believe that coaches still say that a player is too small to play handball.

Children in particular can be very hurtful to each other. The little ones, but also the older ones, need role models who stand behind them, people with good character, and that's what I try to be. But I also say: you have to fight for your success, talent only is not enough, it always takes work and ambition. Nothing is free, you don't get anything for free.

I treat everyone equally and have respect for everyone. That's what I've learnt in 34 years of professional handball. Of course, I've also learnt from mistakes. Because everyone should always set an example: all people are equal and everyone should treat each other with respect.

As a coach and a person, I combine Swedish composure and German thoroughness with my Balkan blood, because I'm very emotional. As a coach, for example, I've always set myself a framework, everything in between is my freedom, sometimes more democratic, sometimes a bit tougher.

So, it's difficult to say where my home is. Of course I'm Swedish by passport, I grew up there, but I've been living abroad since 1999. I've been in Germany for 19 years, which is almost half of my life. I've played or trained in seven countries. I feel very much at home in Sweden, but I can well imagine living in France or Spain again, and not just because of my love of good wine and good food. I see myself as a European with Balkan roots, and I still love being in the Balkan Region.

I was able to live and play abroad for many years, first for two years in Granollers in Spain, then from 2001 to 2009 for the German clubs Nordhorn and Flensburg. I even ended up as captain at the SG. In sporting terms, together with the successes with the Swedish national team, that was a formative time.

In the beginning, it was an incredible, incredibly fast journey with the national team. Within just 14 months, I became world champion, European champion and reached the Olympic final. That was unbelievable. And because we lost the Olympic final in Sydney to Russia, I still have a lifelong dream: to win an Olympic gold medal. Maybe that will still happen. I still have time.

A decisive point in my life was the transition from being player to become coach or sports director. In the 2008/09 season, I realised that my body was no longer able to stand it. I decided to end my career as a player. I had planned everything: to go back to Sweden to become a coach in Skövde. We had bought a plot of land, built a house and our two children would go to school in Sweden.

But everything turned out differently.

The phone rang and it was the president of SG Flensburg-Handewitt. “Ljubo, you have to stay. We have a new job for you.” I stayed, went from captain to sports director. For a year and a half. Then I became their coach. In my very first half-season, we reached the cup final, lost to THW Kiel, reached the quarter-finals of the EHF Champions League and lost to Ciudad Real. In my first full season, we won the European Cup Winners' Cup, finished runners-up and reached the cup final again, losing again to THW Kiel, who were still light years away from the SG in sporting terms at the time.

This start as a coach was the next crazy journey for me. We were now on a par with top teams in domestic and European perspective. I would never have thought what you can achieve. We built a top team with a lot of great characters in the squad.

Then came the EHF FINAL4 in Cologne in 2014, where nobody thought we could beat FC Barcelona and THW Kiel within two days, but we made it. We were the absolute underdogs and ended up on the podium. I'll never forget the players’ happiness after the final whistle, and how we celebrated with our fans in Flensburg on the Monday after the final. It was surreal, it was a dream come true, it was amazing.

But what nobody saw was how much we suffered after failures during this time, how hard the team fought for our successes. The path to reach this the goal was the most important achievement for me as a young coach on this journey. I was at Flensburg for eleven years, as a player, as a sports director and as a coach. And even though the Champions League title was the greatest thing, I think back just as fondly to the moment in 2015 when we finally won the German Cup after losing four finals in a row.

After Flensburg, I had very different spots in terms of clubs: Veszprém, Kristianstad, Nîmes and Rhein-Neckar Löwen, and I was also national coach in Hungary and Slovenia.

Coaching a national team is very different to coaching a club. You have absolutely no time to develop anything. Two 14-day training programmes with test matches, then a big tournament. That’s all. That's why I always thought at the beginning: Ljubo, you have to do both at the same time — club and national team, so that you can also develop players individually. That's how it was in Hungary, that's how it was in Slovenia. Today I wouldn’t recommend myself to have two jobs at the same time, my experience has taught me this.

It was always a special honour for me to be national team coach, even the short time when I took over Serbia, which was of course very special for me. And I realised that as a national team coach, you need to be more of a leader, and to be a good match coach.

Now, I have been back in Flensburg since the summer of 2023, again as sports director. The first season was a tough one, but we managed to end it with great results by winning the European League.

Clubs are much more results-orientated, and it is very much about the finances, which decide on the squad. As a coach, I think that you always should be development-orientated, developing players and the results will automatically come a long with that mindset. However, this balance has become really difficult today. Every coach has his own ideas about how he wants to develop his players and often in a top club, the coach is depending on the results. That is how the coach is measured.

And that's why many failures are part of my life. There have always been defeats, there has always been sorrow. Even if you give 100 per cent, it may not be enough. There can be a lot of different things that prevent you from having success. For me personally I also had some difficulties with my mental health as a player. I was treated for depression in 2005/06. I still have depressive tendencies today, but I can control it much better, knowing when to take a step back and think about your well-being. You don't talk much about things like that, it’s almost taboo but it shouldn't be. I am not perfect, nobody is perfect, but I learned to accept my weaknesses because I am strong.

You still hear phrases like ‘You're a man, you're not allowed to cry. You have to be tough’. But you have to talk openly about it. That's why I think it's great that the EHF's Respect Your Talent programme for young players, for example, addresses the topic of mental health. If you have problems, you have to be able to talk about it, ask for and accept help. Children and young people in particular need to learn how to deal with this. They are the ones who are hurt so much on social media; they are much more affected today than our generation was back then.

It has nothing to do with your person just because you lose a game or don't score with the last, decisive shot. You can and may make wrong decisions, you should and must even have the courage to do so. That's the only way you can develop. And that's why I was really happy that I was able to pass on my experiences at the Respect Your Talent Camp in January.

But over the years, I've also learnt to relax. My family is my safe place and, when we have time, we love to travel. I dive a lot on holiday and of course I've had my favourite hobby, photography, for many years, but you have to have time for both and make time for them, which isn't possible during the season. In everyday life, I have therefore become a passionate cook and wine connoisseur. When I was a coach in France, I worked in a kitchen many times to improve my skills and knowledge. Cooking is a great way for me to relax, so it doesn't matter whether I'm cooking Swedish, French or German style.

Because one thing I've learnt in 34 years: only handball isn't healthy, either.

Ljubomir Vranjes
March 2025

Main photo © kolektiff