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Growing up in a small town in Bosnia during the war in the 1990s, I couldn’t step into sport until I was 14. When I finally found handball (or more exactly, when handball finally found me), there was no specialized goalkeeper coach to show me the basics or to simplify the huge amount of information a goalkeeper needs. I learned everything on my own, one attempt (and one failure) at a time, and sometimes I learned some things by accident. That experience entirely shaped why and how I coach today.
My name is Vanja Radić, and I’ve spent over 25 years in handball, first as a professional goalkeeper, then as a coach and coach educator. Across the last two decades I’ve worked with athletes and coaches in more than 30 countries on three continents, from ground level beginners taking their first steps in goal, all the way to the top of the international level.
That path took me to some of the biggest stages in the sport. I’ve coached at the World Handball Championship, the Asian Championship, the Asian Games, and the Olympic Games in Paris 2024.
The Asian Games still amaze me when I think about its scale. It’s one of the largest sporting events in the world, second only to the Olympics, with thousands of athletes from across a whole continent competing at the same time. I was there coaching at the 2023 edition in Hangzhou, where around 12,500 athletes from the 45 national and regional Olympic committees of Asia gathered in one place. Being inside a Games that size is fascinating and incredible, and it’s the experience I’ll always carry with me.
After all those years of coaching at every level and working across three continents at the same time, I reached a point where I was tired of constant travel and being away from my family. So I made a change. Today I offer all of my coaching and education online. The experience stayed with me, and I really enjoy sharing it. Now I can share it with coaches and goalkeepers anywhere in the world.
Alongside my formal education in sports coaching, I’m a certified neuroscience coach, and I hold certifications in Somatic Attachment Therapy and in Polyvagal Safety, Connection, and Human Experience. My approach blends professional expertise with lived experience, emotional awareness, and trauma-informed sensitivity. A lot of my work now is at the place where coaching and psychology intertwine, because how an athlete feels, thinks, and recovers matters as much as how they move. When I write about mindset, pressure, fear of failure, and mental health for coaches and athletes, it comes from both study and years of actual work with athletes at every level.
I care deeply about my own growth, and about helping other people find and reach their highest potential. Early in my career I went after goals that looked out of reach, and even now I still set high goals and look for ways to achieve them. The only change is that I learned that recovery and time to rest are equally important as time to put in hard work.
When you find work that truly means something to you, the drive to keep going gets easier to hold onto, and you get to pass that same feeling to the people around you. That’s the part I love most about coaching.
Going far in anything asks for strong and steady commitment and the patience to keep showing up, especially on the hard days.
I also believe in doing that in a way that looks after your health and your joy, because that’s what lets you keep going over the long run.
You have more in you than you might realize, and the right support helps you find it.
The Services I Offer
Something I’ve said to many of the athletes I’ve worked with: when you add up every physical, technical, tactical, mental, and emotional skill, the single most important thing for any athlete, and any person, is a smile. That belief runs through all my work. I want the people I coach to grow, to feel safe, and to enjoy the journey while they do it.
If you’d like to work together, or you’re interested in blog posts, articles, podcasts, collaborations, or partnerships, you can reach me through the contact form or at vanjaradiccoaching@gmail.com.
And if you found your way here because of my work in handball goalkeeper coaching, visit my blog, where you can browse topics and find plenty of ideas and tips for goalkeeper training.