Jake Bijola’s father confided in a story that most fans don’t know. Watch the short video statement.
Slovenian football representative Jaka Bijol played his first season on the island this year as a member of the English club Leeds, and according to foreign media, some of the biggest European clubs are also interested in him. Today he is considered one of the most talented footballers of his generation, but his career could have developed quite differently.
His sporting path was somehow written from birth, as everyone at home expected him to follow his father’s love for skiing. “Jaka practically skied as soon as he stepped on his feet,” recalls Janez Bijol today, who spoke about his son’s journey at the round table On the path of winners: from talent to icon – how a top athlete is made. This took place within the framework of the Del Business Center conference Sport is business: how to create the winners of the future. Although Jaka successfully competed in alpine skiing for several years and became the national giant slalom champion in Krvavac in 2012, he himself had other plans. After the victory at the national championship, a turnaround followed. “He stepped off the stage and said: Now I’m not going to ski anymore, now I’m just going to play football,” Janez Bijol recalled.
At that time, the father thought that it was a childish excitement that would quickly pass. Today, he knows that it was one of the most important moments in his son’s sports career. The journey that led from Dravograd to Moscow, from Moscow to Italy and on to the English Premier League began much more unexpectedly than most fans imagine.
Check out what happened at the conferencewhere many successful athletes and businessmen presented their stories.
The story of the Bijol family is above all a story of support, trust and clearly set goals. PHOTO: Voranc Vogel
From a childhood dream to the Premier League
Jaka Bijol mapped out his sports path very early. Not only with persistence, but also with quite precisely set goals that he wrote down on a piece of paper as a child. “In fact, he decided quite quickly that he would be a professional athlete. He had already dreamed of going to the Šiška Gymnasium, he had even written a plan. He still has that sheet at home, how his professional path will go, where he sees himself.”
The plan obviously drove him forward, as he already signed his first professional contract with the Velenje Football Club at the age of 18. When representatives of CSKA Moscow noticed him at a tournament in St. Petersburg, his path to European football began. At the age of 19, he signed a contract and went, as his father said, “with a belly for bread” alone to Moscow.
He played the last season in one of the strongest football leagues in the world. He wore the Leeds jersey in the Premier League and showed what kind of test he is made of. So much so that many European giants are also interested in him today.
“At the age of 15, he was already the captain of the U16 national team, after that the path only went up.”
A father who did not want to be a coach from the background
As president of the alpine skiing branch of the Ski Association of Slovenia, he has been following the sport from the other side for many years – as an official, organizer and a person who knows well the relationships between parents, coaches and clubs. He says that he himself always made sure that he did not work in the sports that his son played. Not because he wasn’t interested, but because he knew very well how quickly a conflict of interest could arise. If a child is in the same sport in which one of the parents has influence, questions quickly arise: who decides, who pushes, and who wants to help a little too much.
He did not hide that this is one of the major challenges of Slovenian sports. Since we are a small country, parents are often also coaches, organizers, financiers or members of clubs. All this can bring a lot of good, but at the same time, it can also lead to quite complicated situations.
The story of the Bijol family is above all a story of support, trust and clearly set goals. PHOTO: Voranc Vogel
“They interfere with the work of the coaches, they interfere with the setting of programs, they would even put together certain teams,” warned Bijol. According to him, most of the problems start when parents put their ambitions ahead of their children’s. He does not hide that there is no easy solution. You cannot exclude parents from their children’s sports, because they are often the ones who drive to training, finance the equipment and stand by in the most difficult moments. However, he believes that sometimes it is necessary to know how to draw the line. “You can’t forbid them, but you can slow them down a bit in their ambitions,” he said.
Perhaps it is interesting that he himself never tried to direct Jako’s career. Although he was by his side all the time, he left the decision on the sports path to his son. When he announced after winning the title of national champion in skiing that he would only play football, he did not believe him. Today, however, it is clear that it was one of the best decisions of his life.
“They interfere with the work of the coaches, they interfere with the setting of the programs, they would even put the teams together.”
If the story of the Bijol family speaks of one thing, it is trust. The father offered support, and the son chose his own direction. From the ski resort in Krvavec to the stadiums in Moscow, Italy and England, the path was long, but apparently clearly outlined already on that sheet of paper, which is still kept at home today.
