Ismet Sejfić's thorny path: From being belittled to a man the audience stands for

By Haris Ljevo

The story of basketball player Ismet Sejfić is similar to the stories of dozens of other athletes from this region. In a very short time, this young man from Prozor has gone from an anonymous person to a player who gets the full Skenderija arena on its feet with his spectacular moves.

Ismet Sejfić was finishing elementary school when I first saw him and noticed that he had all the prerequisites to become a serious basketball player one day.

After finishing the seventh grade of elementary school, he went to Turkey, where he continued his education and dedicated training in basketball. He quickly became one of the best players in Turkey in his age group.

In high school, he averaged 33 points per game for the school team Server Gazi from Denizli. At that time, I wrote the first article about this young man as a great talent and a future BiH national team player.

Some fellow journalists publicly accused me of having received money to write an article about a young man they had never heard of or seen, but who they nevertheless "knew" had no talent and would never become a basketball player.

For years, Sejfić worked diligently, trained with conditioning coaches, and developed through Turkish, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Chinese, and domestic clubs, to finally earn a place in the national team today.

In the wake of numerous absences of regular players, some young players benefited, including Sejfić, in whom Duško Vujošević saw one of the options at the center position.

Sejfić worked hard during the national team's preparations and earned a chance with Vujošević, and his brilliant performance against Armenia, where he got the crowd on its feet with several excellent moves, was the best reward for all the effort he had invested in his development over the years.

I experienced every basket Ismet scored as if I had scored it myself. Because I know well what he went through in his life and career to become who he is today. Apart from his family, especially his older brother, who were a great support in his life, not many people helped him.

Today, when he has become a serious player, many of those who said he would never even become a player are lining up to praise him, shake his hand, and try to take at least a little credit for his success.

Edin Džeko went through the same path, from a "clumsy player" from Grbavica to a Diamond. Or Robert Prosinečki, whom Ćiro Blažević said he would eat his coaching diploma if he ever became a player. Prosinečki became one of the best players in the world, and Ćiro, of course, never kept his promise.

Ismet Sejfić's greatest success is that he has remained the same young man he was when, as a boy, he dreamed of one day wearing the national team jersey. Honest, uncorrupted, and dedicated solely to his work.