It is 04.38 when a message ticks in on the undersigned’s phone.
“I’m sitting in the back carriage,” reads the message from Sanel Bojadzic.
The 25-year-old gets up at 04.00 every single day for an 80 kilometer long train ride from Levanger to Trondheim. This time, TV 2 gets to join. The job calls.
The Obosligaen’s top scorer is by no means living a life of luxury.
– Some guys on the team have made fun of me getting up when the nightclubs close, says Bojadzic to TV 2, before he continues something more serious:
– I have told many friends, there are no excuses for not being successful here in Norway. You have to work hard, of course, but it’s about gritting your teeth and persevering.
Got a shock
“The bull” from Klepp, as he is called, has waited patiently for his breakthrough in top football.
On a train from Levanger to Trondheim, he tells his unique story.
Since 2016, Bojadzic has gone through the ranks from 4th division play with Klepp, to play in the Norsk Tipping and PostNord leagues, before he then signed for Levanger, which at the time was also in the third level of Norwegian football.
He remembers well his first training session with the team in January 2022.
THE JOB CALLS: Bojadzic starts the working day when he gets on the train at 05.00. In the evening he is the footballer and “the bull from Klepp”, but during the day he is Sanel. The accounting consultant. Photo: Per-Atle Karlsen / TV 2
– Then I got a shock. I thought Levanger was a bit closer to Trondheim. It was a blizzard. It was absolutely sick. I didn’t have enough training clothes with me, so I got there in a t-shirt and sweatpants, he says and continues:
– I remember him, the man who was supposed to shovel the field, he kept up the whole training. It didn’t stop. Everyone remembers it very well. It was perhaps the sickest training we have ever taken part in, he smiles.
However, the fact that he would end up in Levanger in 2022, and one year later become top scorer in the club’s promotion season, has not always been a given for the 25-year-old.
THE START: In a Klepp outfit, Bojadzic showed early on something that lives in him. In 2016, he scored 23 goals in 19 games when the team won the 4th division. Photo: Private
In the autumn of 2018, other things began to tempt. Then Bojadzic took a break from football in favor of a year in the military.
– I really wanted to continue there. I enjoyed myself very much. Sometimes I miss it. It was very straight forward. Being a good soldier was fun, but there was something that kept me from being one. I had football in my head.
One year later, he literally started on a difficult road back to football.
– I weighed 110 kilos and had only done strength training. I was literally a bull, chuckles Bojadzic.
Fleeing from war
But working for what he wants has never been a problem for Jærbo.
Bojadzic was born in Duisburg, Germany, but has parents from the former Yugoslavia.
That is exactly what has helped to shape the Levanger striker.
FROM KOSOVO TO KLEPP: When the conflicts in the Balkans broke out in the 1990s, Sanel and his family went to Norway. Photo: Private
– I think people would have been shocked by the problems my father had. He has seen war with his own eyes and he has had family in countries where there is actually conflict. It is demanding not knowing whether they will survive, says Bojadzic, and adds:
– It is survival. It has left its mark. That’s the thing about being able to finish and not stop.
Not long after Sanel was born, he and his family went back to the Balkans and Kosovo. When the conflicts in the Balkans flared up in the early 1990s, the family traveled to Norway.
– When my father came to Norway with my mother, me and my brother, we brought two suitcases. Today we have quite a lot more than that, and I am very proud and humbled by that. I am very proud of my father, my family and what they have achieved. They’ve been in quite a bit of shit too.
TWO SUITCASES: It was the inventory for Sanel and the rest of the family when they came to Norway. Photo: Per-Atle Karlsen / TV 2
– When you grow up seeing such things, you become a fighter and a warrior. You realize that nothing comes for free. I have not had an A4 growing up in Norway. I’ve had a few other things to reach for and a few other parents, who can demand quite a bit more from you.
Adversity and misfortune
The Levanger striker has never received anything for free.
The fact that he is now about to make his real breakthrough as a footballer at the age of 25 is hardly a coincidence.
– It has been turbulent and a career that has been very up, down, back and forth. I guess I never had any doubts about whether I should stop playing football, it was more “how long will it take before I get my five minutes in the spotlight?”, says Bojadzic.
Because there is little doubt that he has fought hard to get into a position to stand with six goals after four games in the Obosligaen.
In 2021, he had to undergo an operation after he sprained his ankle in a match for Fram Larvik.
Four years earlier, however, as a Vidar player, things could have gone even worse for the spearhead.
BUS ACCIDENT: It could have gone terribly wrong when Bojadzic was involved in a bus accident a few years ago. Photo: Per-Atle Karlsen / TV 2
– On the way home from the match, pizza was served on the bus. Then I was going to go get that pizza. After all, I was on the phone and didn’t follow what happened next. Then I take the pizza, turn around and then the bus slams on the brakes. The next thing I remember, I was looking for my phone. I didn’t know I had been thrown through the bus.
The cause of the accident was a moose in the roadway. Incredibly, Bojadzic came out of it all with only a concussion and a two-week training ban.
– It was just a bang. You have to shake it off, he smiles.
– Cost what it will cost
And the act of “shaking” things off is something Bojadzic has become well used to.
That quality has made the “bull” from Klepp one of the hottest goalscorers in Norwegian football.
– I don’t think I’m Sanel when I go out on a football field. I don’t know who I am, but I usually tell the guys that I’m going to war. It may cost what it will.
“LATE BLOOMER”: Even though he has turned 25, Bojadzic has not given up on his dream of making a living from football full-time. Photo: Per-Atle Karlsen / TV 2
Even though he has turned 25, the Obosligaen’s top scorer admits that he still dreams of playing at an even higher level.
He will achieve that dream.
– I don’t think I will give up until I have reached my goal. I want to try to be as good as possible and show that there is something in me too, even if I am a bit of a “late bloomer”, smiles the Levanger striker.