Haracic, Ferrar Van Ginkel is shaped by Angel City trips

DiDi Haracic was a few hours old when he first escaped death.

The siege of Sarajevo began 10 days before Harasic’s mother, Anica, was born, and when she was strong enough to stand on her own two feet, she was discharged from Koshevo Hospital.

“The nurses told my mother to stay. My mother specifically said, ‘No, we’re leaving.’ “And we parted.”

A few weeks later, Harasic’s mother, who did not have legal documents for her baby, took the child to a safe place in Croatia and from there to Germany. At about the same time, the hospital was hit by Serbian artillery, one of the deadliest terrorist attacks during the Bosnian war.

“I do not think I would be here if I did not leave Bosnia,” he said. We would not be alive, “Harasic said. “When the Serbs invaded Bosnia, they were mostly hunting people.”

It was poverty that almost killed Stefany Ferrer Van Ginkel. Her 20-year-old mother, who struggles with drugs, had other children whom she could not look after when she was born in the same house. favela in central Brazil. Finally, the state intervened and gave the mother a choice: she could buy drugs or children, but not both.

Drugs won.

The girls, who were placed in an orphanage, were later adopted by a couple and taken to a rural town about an hour away from Barcelona.

“I am just happy. For everything that happened to me, ”he says now. “It was like a really crazy walk.”

Finally a trip to Angel City FC, the NWSL franchise he joined, a month after he made his purchase in Southern California and Haracic. The two women share more than a dressing room. For both, football was a lifeline, foundation and inspiration that helped them persevere long before the game turned into a career.

“Football has always been for me,” said Ferrer Van Ginkel. “It helped me in life.”

“After all that happened, I wouldn’t be here today,” Harasic said.

For Angel City head coach Freya Coombe, comparing life and death to a football match is a difficult comparison. However, the hardships faced by Harasic and Ferrer Van Ginkel made them warriors, survivors and victors.

“Our character is based on our life experiences. When players go through really difficult experiences, they certainly get the skills and mechanisms to cope, and they learn from that, “Coombe said.” They can also be really resilient to what life throws at them and the pressures they face in football. “

Although Van Ginkel was frustrated by Angel City’s inability to get off the bench in the first four games, Harasic was a star and helped Angel City (3-1-0) finish second in two of the four games. The 12-team NWSL schedule goes to Sunday’s match against Gotham FC at the Banc of California Stadium.

The 30-year-old Harasic is not the first member of his family to play high-level football. His father, Izzi, played professionally in Germany and then competed in bobsledding for the first Bosnia and Herzegovina team at the 1994 Winter Olympics.

In the meantime, he was part of the security details of Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic. Years of relationships helped him move his family from Germany to Northern Virginia, where 2-year-old DiDi quickly discovered basketball and street hockey before falling in love with football.

“My father always wanted me to be on the pitch, so I don’t know how the whole goalkeeper concert started except to get involved in training, and my coach asked me, ‘Hey, I need a goalkeeper for this weekend. tournament. Do you want to come in? ‘ Harasic, then 13, recalls. “It simply came to our notice then. We won the tournament and now we are here. “

He continued to play in Loyola Maryland, where he was named conference player of the year after leading the Greyhounds to the NCAA tournament. However, his professional career has been peripatetic, with five teams remaining in two countries over the past decade. During this time, he started more than seven games in one season.

Fortunately, this was last season at Gotham City, where Coombe’s head coach and Daniel Ball’s goalkeeping coach. The day the two officially reunited in Angel City, they bought Harasichi in a trade.

Haracic, who has not conceded a goal in the last 267 minutes, said: “We all know each other to some extent.” “At the end of the day, I just do my job. This is another simple football game. “

There are also a few non-simple games. He played for Bosnia and Herzegovina in the qualifying round of the 2018 World Cup in Moscow, the first of seven games in his homeland in the last four years.

“My mother specifically told me that she didn’t want me to go back and play for Bosnia,” Harasic said. “I told him no, because this is my country. This is where I was born. … I put my foot on the ground. I need[ed] do it for me. “

“I cried on my first day in the national team,” he said. “The national anthem, I think, is all in itself. It’s a really strong moment.”

It was not patriotism that returned Harasichi to a country he knew in the first few weeks of his life. It was family and history and maybe a chance to reconcile.

“My grandmother and I still live in the house where my mother was born,” he said. “You still see the bomb,” he said [damage], you still see bullet holes. When I first entered with the national team, I fell into that basement and my aunt showed me a corner [where] we hid from the soldiers.

“I wanted to do it to see what was damaged, the history and the stories behind it. … It was years ago and I really believe in change. ”

Ferrer Van Ginkel is as serious and thoughtful as Harasic. At the age of 23, he underwent a number of changes: his childhood in Brazil, then in Spain; Move to the United States solo; Return to the British reality show; then his debut in the first division took place last summer with the Mexican team Tigres Liga MX Femenil.

Even its name is a mixture of such personalities and experiences, which often causes people to stop.

“Yes, they are confused,” he said. “I also.”

Ferrer Van Ginkel was three years old when he and his two sisters were taken to an orphanage by their grandmother, who was unable to care for them. According to his mother, he stood on the edge of the building and shouted, “Give my children back.” So the girls were moved to another orphanage.

Her older sister, Larisa, struggled to keep her daughters together, and all three refused to be adopted until they joined a family. The Spanish couple, Francesc Ferrer-Alegre and Astrid Van Ginkel, finally agreed, and when Ferrer Van Ginkel was 5 years old, they took their daughters to Spain, where they lived in Argenchola, a village on the outskirts of Catalonia. Forest.

“I am very grateful to my parents. They gave us a chance to get out, you know? It was a golden ticket, ”said Ferrer Van Ginkel, insisting on using the names of both parents – Spanish Ferrer and Dutch Van Ginkel – in his own name.

At first, it didn’t feel like a gold ticket. Concerned about the move and frustrated by his inability to speak Catalan or make new friends, Ferrer Van Ginkel vented his anger on the high school’s football field.

“It simply came to my notice then. That’s the decent thing to do, and it should end there. “

As a child, Ferrer Van Ginkel was so good at football that at the age of 12 he played for the boys’ team. At the age of 17, he joined Espanyol B, a reserve team associated with Barcelona’s first division club, before accepting a pension in West Virginia. .

As a midfielder, he scored 13 times in 66 college games, but was not selected in the NWSL draft, so he was tested. The ultimate goalA reality show of 31 women trained by former legends of the England national team and trying to turn them into professional players.

This revelation helped him as an agent, then found a place with Tigres in the Mexican Liga MX Femenil and became the team’s first foreign player. The program also introduced him to Eni Aluko, one of the two TV coaches. Last spring, Aluko became Angel City’s first sporting director, and seven months later he acquired Ferrer Van Ginkel, who is believed to be the first transfer paid with cryptocurrency.

Thus, although Ferrer Van Ginkel played only 14 minutes in the NWSL Challenge Cup and has yet to appear in a regular season game, it is a source of frustration, but his playing professional football in general is a gift of destiny, he said.

Also a gift: She now plays for a team of actresses and producers in Hollywood.

Five months ashamed of his 24th birthday, Ferrer Van Ginkel said, “They used to say, ‘You look like you’re 14, so you can definitely be at Disney.’ “I would like to act. I’ve always wanted to do Pocahontas. “

Talk about the font. Born the daughter of Native American chiefs, Pocahontas underwent many changes, almost like Ferrer Van Ginkel, converted to Christianity and married a colonial smoker before the death of a favorite of English high society.

“The decisions you make can change completely,” he said [life]”One of the things I’ve learned over the years is to rely on how you feel. I wanted to go to the United States, and when I was in the United States, I thought, ‘I’m going to Mexico,'” he said.

“I believe in myself. I always put myself in a difficult position. I don’t want it to be easy. I like difficulties. “

DiDi Haracic could have said the same thing.