One of the last interviews of the legendary Kinđe in the book "sportskivremeplov.ba" by Muhamed Bikić

Today marks the 13th anniversary of the death of Mirza Delibašić, the legendary BiH basketball player and the best athlete of BiH of all time, writes the Patria News Agency.

One of the last interviews of the legendary Kinđe is described in the book "sportskivremeplov.ba", by Muhamed Bikić, a well-known sports journalist.

We are reprinting the entire excerpt about Kinđe in full:

Whenever I don't know how to describe this, to say the least, strange state through which the country of Bosnia and Herzegovina, its people, its sports, culture, state institutions, closed museum doors, sports clubs struggling with debts without light at the end of the tunnel... I remember the words of the great Mirza Delibašić when I asked him in 2000 to describe the state of BiH sports.

He said: A collective catastrophe!!!

Through the bluish smoke of his cigarette, those words flickered in the air... We were sitting for the last time in the Sarajevo café London in Ciglane. He had his usual pose, leaning his right elbow on the table, pressing his nostril with his index finger, while holding a cigarette between his index and middle fingers, and slowly answering my questions. A collective catastrophe, he said, looking into the distance, as if he couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel.

"The Real Madrid veterans were here. It was wonderful, but we have forgotten all of that, and it was normal for us. And those guys hadn't been in Sarajevo for sixteen years. The last time they were here was at my farewell. Maybe they will never come again, maybe they will, and we forget it very quickly. That is our catastrophe. A collective catastrophe. Especially for those people who spent the war here, who are frustrated, whose friends, acquaintances, relatives are dying every day...", Mirza said.

I thought, what an irony, because it was said by the very man who was a light and a guide for many generations of young basketball players, athletes in general. Mirza was one of the "stars" of Professor Slobodan Đurasović's wonderful book, titled "Lights for Distances", which the professor dedicated to Mirza Delibašić and Vahid Halilhodžić, legends of BiH sports.

Interestingly, Mirza, who was born in Tuzla in 1954, initially played tennis, becoming a junior republican champion. After tennis, Mirza opted for basketball, and in 1968 he became a member of Sloboda, and in 1972 he moved to Bosna. With the "Students", Kinđe won the national championship title twice, the Yugoslav Cup once, and in 1979 in Grenoble, by winning the final against the Italian Emerson, the European championship title, and a year later he was chosen as the best basketball player of former Yugoslavia. For Bosna, Kinđe played about seven hundred games, scoring over fourteen thousand points, after which he moved to the famous Real Madrid, where he ended his career.

And with the national team of former Yugoslavia, he won everything that could be won: European, World, Olympic gold...

"My grandfather was a miner, two uncles too, and the fact that my grandfather decided to educate my father shows no connection to what I did in my life. Behind my success lies a lot of hard work and sweat, as well as the fact that I thought a little more in the game," he would say that year, after being declared the BiH athlete of the century.

Mirza was incredibly consistent and dedicated in everything. As our people would say, "to the bone". In that last conversation of ours, he told me on that topic:

"I always dedicated myself to what I was doing to the fullest. If you can understand what I mean: I smoke abnormally, when I drank, I drank abnormally, when I trained, I trained abnormally... So, I always tried to achieve the maximum in what I was doing. Maybe it seems a little idiotic to you, but it's not. I'm simply that kind of person."

And he was simply truly that kind of MAN!

Sarajevo, 2001. The capital city and the country of Bosnia and Herzegovina had not yet recovered from the grief for Davorin Popović Pimpek, the legendary leader of Indeksi, when it already wept for Mirza Delibašić Kinđe, our best athlete of the last century. Davorin Popović Pimpek died on June 18th, a Monday, and Mirza Delibašić Kinđe on December 8th, a Saturday, on a day when he had been winning and losing his whole life. Two best friends, who were connected by everything in life, including that serious illness they both suffered from around the same time, went to another, as they say, better world. It was said that both knew what had befallen them. However, when they watched Željo with Pimpek in Grbavica, or had coffee with Kindže in Sarajevo's FIS, we were convinced that they still had the will to live. At Mirza's farewell match in Skenderija against Real Madrid, Davorin Popović sang to him from the stands: "Mirza, thank you". Davor is no longer here to sing those lyrics again, just as Mirza is no longer here. Today, the large hall of the Cultural Sports Center Skenderija bears the name Mirza Delibašić, and in the park in front of Sarajevo's FIS, sculptures of the legendary Kinđe and the Singer have been erected.