Spending my youth on playgrounds and playing multiple sports in high school later became a passion for me and still is. Growing up during the war in Bosnia, I was forced to move to Croatia. At the early age of my life, there I became a young and talented basketball player. Endless training sessions, multiple coaches, and individual work on my own, made me who I was then and who I am today.

My family moved to Boston, USA, one of the greatest sports cities in the world. Then I switched and started to play soccer and build a team with many European friends who were in love with football the same way I was. Football or soccer, what is called in the US, was on the rise in 2000 when the US Women’s National Team won the world cup, and suddenly I became a women’s assistant coach of the WMLS Boston Breakers Reserve team. With my mentor and friend, the following year we won the National Championship with Boston Breakers (Oldes soccer club in US history) Reserves, a great achievement and one of the first for me in the US and as a coach.

While starting a new life in a new country, my brother was graduating college, his major was Physical Education and he became a strength and conditioning coach, and I was his “guinea pig” at the time. Me being in soccer and him being around the best of all time in the industry, was a great mix. Surrounded by some of the greatest professional athletes and coaches of all time at Mike Boyle Strength and Conditioning Facilities MBSC, we were fishing with dynamite. That made a huge impact, and after that, I haven’t missed any of the soccer coaches’ conferences in the US, S & C courses, or seminars, I tried to get as much information and knowledge as possible and listened to and learned from the best in the world. Then I got certified as an S & C coach CFSC by MBSC and also got myself a USSF/UEFA coaches’ diploma, shortly after I become Director of Coaching by NSCAA. Learning so much about movement, coaching team soccer, and injury prevention, got me a coaching job in a local high school, then club soccer and assisting at the college level where I gained huge hands-on experience. 

Finally in 2010, when my company “ddtrainingcamps” was born, and I was responsible for soccer camps and bringing Dinamo Zagreb and their coaches to the US to scout and learn. We started to move kids from the US to Croatia on tryouts and the other way around, from Croatia to USA Colleges. My next step was club academy soccer, I became a coach at the youth academy level. Huge experience coaching U12 and U14 at the same time assisting and helping at the college level. My next move was the position of Director of coaching for Boston Bolts, one of the oldest club soccer teams in Boston. While managing coaches, and teams, also coaching myself at the youth level and then starting a junior academy to build the foundation of club soccer, made me think about many different angles of soccer and managing skills. 

During the coaching, I explored everything about soccer, what impact I have on the club, my coaching staff, how they approach or get motivated to coach a team, and what impact I have on a single player. I noticed that the biggest impact I have as an individual coach and while spending more time with individual athletes I leave such a good impact on them. Immediately I fell in love with that personal experience one on one. A single phone call from Germany, a country that loves soccer, changed a lot of things. Therefore, I was tested as an individual coach of some of the best and most talented young players in Germany at the time. Names like Jonatan Tah, who played for Bayer Leverkusen as starting center back, and was under 21 and was a captain of the German NT at the under 21 World Cup. Also, names like AbudulHamid Sabiri who scored at the WC 2022 in Katara for Morocco, and at the time was playing in EPL and my focus moved to youth professionals.

When Covid time came most of the things got closed because of the pandemic. That gave me an idea and time that I can search for more opportunities on how to improve training, football game analysis, psychological aspects of a player’s mindset, deficit improvements, the performance of the athletes, etc. 

In 2020, with a few partners, I started a company in Germany called NLT or Next Level Talents where I am currently director of S & C and I travel to Dusseldorf where our base is. Demand for US players to come to the EU it’s huge, kids like Pulisic got everyone’s attention then many started to follow. I moved with my family from the US to Croatia, during the pandemic and I started working as an individual football coach, mentor, and scout. Several Croatian youth players started to like what I do, and this is how my story in Istria begins. The base of my training sessions is lots of talking, then analyzing games, then we talked about football movements on and off the ball, preparation before the match, and got lots of “WHY” questions. Enjoying what I do and the impact I have on the players, they started to look like professionals and acted as one. My attention and focus were more on their development overall. On and off the pitch from eating habits, rest and sleeping, recovery, post-injury, and injury prevention, one becomes passionate and loves the sport. 

In the last decades, I have been involved in several projects from Dinamo soccer camps, to Legia soccer camps in the US. Placing players in US and EU clubs, I am an organizer of GoPlay Sports traveling company to set in place soccer preparation including visiting and playing friendly matches in Croatia and nearby countries. Teq-Ball representative and promoter (fastest growing sport in the world). I also work as a soccer scout for several agencies in Croatia, Germany, and the USA, including SPL Special Power League, Life Health Academy, and many more including all aspects of football.

Nowadays I am especially proud to announce that I have been coaching some of the leading U21 football potentials as, Jonathan Tah Bayer Leverkusen, Abdulhamid Sabiri Lacio,  NK Belupo Jakov Basic, NK Sesvete Ivan Abramovic, New England Revolution Justin Rennicks, Red Bull NY Amos Shepiro Thompson, NK Rijeka and Croatia NT U19 Noel Bodetic, Mihael Bodetic, U18 NT players Franco Correly and Lorenzo Travaglia, Ennio Travaglia NK Orijent, D’Andre Bishop NT Antiga and NK Belisce, National Team of Bosnia and Herzegovina Nermin Mujkic, lstra U19 Luka Djuranovic, Lovro Duzdevic, Eric Flego, Sebastian Samarin, and more. U17 Istra players Aldin Delimehic, Ahmeti Dukan, Eric Krivicic, Arian Moslavac, Gojani Kristijan, and more, NK Jedinstvo Ajdovscina Nathan Messer, NK Medulin Luc Madrid, NK Rijeka Lovro Mikulica, NK Rijeka Semitic Jakov, and more. Several young athletes are not even listed here and have shown some unbelievable talent at an early age but their names will be heard soon.