Jefferson Hagen / MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON – Before he was born, Stefan Gajic's parents and older brothers escaped war-torn Serbia, bound for a life in Canada.
In their new home, they found solace in an old friend – the game of footie. What resulted was a journey for the family that saw all three brothers – Srdjan, Dejan and Stefan – play soccer at a high level.
"During the war, they came here, and I guess it was a scramble where to live. But the game helped my brothers isolate from what was happening back home," said MacEwan Griffins rookie Stefan Gajic, who was born in Canada after parents Miladin and Mira, and his older brothers immigrated here.
"Every time we go back home, you can see buildings that are war-torn and monuments that are built. It's just something you can't escape," he added. "When they moved here, they'd hear stories about what was happening, and soccer would help them (escape)."
In his first season with the Griffins, Gajic will lead the squad into a pair of home Canada West matches this weekend – Saturday vs. Trinity Western (12 p.m.) and Sunday vs. Victoria (2:30 p.m., both games at Clarke Stadium).
Introduced to the game at a young age by their father, the brothers would play against each other and practice every day. Elite footwork and touches were the result.
Srdjan got his opportunity first, landing with Germany third-division club Jahn Regensburg and playing/coaching in that country for the better part of the last decade. He has recently moved back to Edmonton and opened First Touch Soccer Academy.
Dejan trailblazed the path to MacEwan University, suiting up for the Griffins during their transition from the ACAC to Canada West, wrapping his university career with the second-most goals on the team in 2014.
Now, they're all watching Stefan get his chance to shine. Fortuitously, his family was in the stands at Clareview Field when he scored the game-winning goal over Mount Royal University last Saturday.
"It was kind of nice to score in front of them," he said.
To continue a great weekend for himself and the team, a day later, Gajic put in a perfect cross that Joseph Abrahart converted into the game-winner over Calgary.
"In the last minutes there, if you want a guy with the ball at his foot in the attacking third, he'd probably be one we'd choose as a staff, so we were happy it was on his foot at that time of the game," said Griffins head coach Adam Loga of Gajic, who leads the team with three points through the first five games.
"He has the ability to make defenders miss and has the ability to find windows to cross balls in and he did exactly that – just a quick little juke, change of pace and he cut it back well."
That ability comes from hours of practicing with the ball on his foot, both privately and with his teams – MacEwan and FC Edmonton Academy.
"Stefan is class. I can't say enough about his technical ability, as well as his IQ at such a young age," said Loga. "Furthermore, his character – he's just such a great kid.
"I'm sure he's learned quite a bit from his older siblings and he's just been a student of the game since he's been out of the womb."
Indeed, he has. Because of Srdjan's connections in Germany, he landed a one-month training opportunity at age 12 with Dusseldorf. Between that and taking to heart what helped his brother play pro, Gajic added to his repertoire of training techniques.
"I went out to watch him and there's thousands and thousands of people calling out my brother's name and cheering for him," he said. "I used his experience and his drills that he worked on and it helped me so much."
In talking with Dejan, he learned more about being a student-athlete MacEwan, which made the sell from Loga in the recruiting process stick. Now one of 13 first-year players on the Griffins, Stefan Gajic and company are taking the league by surprise.
Not supposed to contend his early in their developmental process, here the kids are, sitting second in the Prairie Division with a 3-2-0 record – one more win than the team had in the entirety of the 2017 season.
"We've got to be aware of the fact that people may take us a little bit more seriously, not to take anything away from the staff and the guys," said Loga. "I'm sure teams came in thinking they'd see a different MacEwan. They saw the MacEwan we'd believe that they'd see and maybe weren't expecting.
"That being said, we have to stay humble. We can't get too far ahead of ourselves. It's still one game at a time, as cliché as it is. This is a new weekend and we're 0-0-0. We need to continue to get points. Nothing changes going in.
"Like we told the lads at the end of the (Calgary) game, there's two people in life: those that are humble and those that are about to be humbled, so let's continue to be humble."
