This is me: Karl Konan

Many top sports careers come from dedication, hard work, and a lot of sacrifices. And: sticking to your dreams. Karl Konan knows all about it. The Montpellier HB defender is on a career path unlike any other, coming along way from Ivory Coast to play for one of the best teams in Europe. Now a French international, Konan shares his impressive story with us in his own words.

THIS IS ME: Karl Konan

Never stop believing in your dreams.

That is what I would think to myself for all these years growing up in Ivory Coast, and this is still what I keep repeating to myself these days.

Because things did not come easy to me and still, here I am, playing the EHF Champions League with one of the biggest clubs in the world, Montpellier, and part of the France national team.

Back in Ivory Coast, I was watching videos of all of this on YouTube. My mates and I, back at the military boarding school, we were in awe of Luc Abalo and Mikkel Hansen.

By the way, don’t get me wrong. Usually, in European countries, kids go to boarding schools when they are tough and their parents want to teach them discipline.

That was not me. This school was my choice.

I wanted to be a lawyer, to have a law degree, so I chose it for myself. It was the best school around the country of Ivory Coast and I wanted to go to university, have a degree and get myself a nice job for when I was older.

But things did not quite turn out as they were meant to.

At that school, we also played a lot of sports.

I was not too good at football, even though my teammates of today will tell you how much progress I’ve made. My dad, whom I barely knew, was a former Ivorian national team player at basketball, and I had a decent try at it.

But then I tried handball, and I got hooked.

Handball was not unknown to my family, though, as my mother Jeanette was also a former Ivorian national player. She stopped playing way before I started, and the only thing that I have of her playing are a couple of pictures.

Even though I played handball pretty well, I was still focused on my law degree. I wanted to find a job, be a lawyer, and that was it.

But in came Daouda Karaboué.

You probably know him since he played for France for more than a decade, also wearing the Montpellier shirt along the way. But he was born in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.

With his charity DK Coeur d’Afrique, he was trying to help the kids in his native country, partly thanks to handball.

And during one of those sessions, he saw something in me. Something I was not even aware of. But then he came back for another session. And then another.

And Doudou, as I call him, told me that I could give handball a go, and that he could try to find me a club in France.

And why not, after all? I’m sure I had some massive dreams for myself when I was young, at least I never refrained myself from dreaming.

Telling my mum that I was about to try my luck at handball in France was a tough part. She just told me to follow my heart. “If this is what you have chosen, if this is what you think is good for you, then go”, she said.

Just boarding the plane was a tough experience for me. It was the first time I took the plane on my own, heading to a country a thousand miles away, with a culture completely different and everything to build again.

My mum took me to the airport, and ten years later, we have never spoken about this moment again. But I know she cried a lot as soon as I went through the gates. And I can only feel for her. After all, letting your only son go away must have been heart-breaking.

Daouda waited for me in Aix en Provence, and the first months went quite smoothly. First thing, I was very lucky that my first French club was in the south of France, as adding a continuous downpour of rain to the cultural shock might have been hard to handle.

People were really nice with me from the start. Stéphane Cambriels, who was the manager of PAUC, Didier de Samie, who was coaching me back then, they did everything to help me out. I have to give a shout-out to Isabelle, who has been taking care of all my paperwork since I arrived in France. She has been working in the shadows, but I owe her a lot.

I was doing so well that, six months after my arrival, I was about to train for the first time with the professional team.

Yes, really, that kid from Ivory Coast was about to train with Noka Serdarusic and Luka Karabatic.

That’s maybe the only time I thought that all of this was going very fast, maybe too fast. Six months before, I was watching videos of these guys on YouTube and now I was about to share a training session with them.

Of course, I called my Ivorian friends after that session, telling them I had just trained with Luka. But I felt some kind of paradox inside of me. I was really happy and excited, because that felt like a dream come true in a way. And if Noka tells you to come and train with him, that’s because you deserve it, nothing else.

But in the meantime, I was instantly aware that if I wanted this dream to keep going, I had to train twice as hard or it would vanish in a second.

I often talk about being in contact with people back in my native country, but I never really felt homesick. Yes, I missed my family and my friends, but that would happen to anyone leaving his home at 17. But I never thought about coming back.

I felt like I was on a mission, sometimes. I feel like my destiny, my career is about more than just myself. It’s about making a dream come true for thousands of kids in Ivory Coast. It’s about setting an example, about representing something to them, telling them that they can achieve their dreams if they work hard for it.

My dream has always been to play at the highest level. And that is what guided me when the France national team called me.

That was a big decision. Ivory Coast is my home country, where I was born, but I was born a second time in France, as a man, as a family leader.

And let’s be truthful, if I wanted to play at the highest level of handball, France was the best solution.

Some people at home took my choice to play for France as a betrayal, but the people that matter to me understood it.

There was some disappointment, some misunderstanding and some took a long time to understand it. They felt like I was abandoning Ivory Coast, forgetting about it. But that was definitely not the case.

To me, it was more about showing the world what a kid from Cocody could do.

And more importantly, my mum gave me her blessing. First she was surprised, but she understood pretty quickly what my choice was about.

When I played my first game with France in May 2021, and even more so when I was called up for EHF EURO 2022, I definitely felt like a box was ticked, that I had made a huge step forward.

When, as a kid, Jackson Richardson and Didier Dinart were my idols, I was now one of them. Maybe just for a small part, but that meant the world to me.

Wearing that blue jersey, singing La Marseillaise for the first time, that made me immensely proud.

Talking of pride, my first EHF Champions League was one of those moments as well. Since I started with PAUC, playing this competition was on my mind. After all, this is where all the best clubs are, where all the best players are.

Subconsciously, I thought that I would be one of those players once I would play in the EHF Champions League.

My adventure in the competition all started with a bang. Playing Barça in front of 8,000 spectators, that was something. Something that I will remember for the rest of my life. That was a blast!

All these things I enjoy probably even more since I did not grow up with them. I did not play in the EHF Champions League for my first professional, nor was I an international player at 21. Which is why I appreciate them so much now.

Looking back on those last two years, they have really been life-changing for me. The French national team, Montpellier, the EHF Champions League, but also a daughter, Anna.

My partner, Pauline, would tell you how tough I was when we first met. If I would lose a game, I could sometimes not speak for two days. And I know how the first times were hard for her.

But now Anna is here, things have completely evolved. I am calmer now, and I come down much quicker from the games now that she is here. You might have had the most terrible game, but there is nothing you can do when she looks at you with that big smile.

I am not afraid to say that, now that I am a father, handball comes second in my life. My moaning days after a defeat are over. My family is my first priority, no matter what.

Having a dream, being a high-level handball player…Do I still have dreams to fulfil? Plenty.

When I stop my career, I want to be a normal person. Have a job in the office, have office hours, nine to five, that’s what I want. I just want not to be an athlete when I quit handball.

But before that, there are still plenty of dreams in my head. Because, as I told you in the beginning: never stop believing in your dreams.

Karl Konan
December 2023