Alilovic shared the best mark of most seasons played in the EHF Champions League with French standout Nikola Karabatic, who retired last year. And since Alilovic has recently prolonged his contract with Plock for an additional year, he is bound to set the all-time record in 2025/26, which would be his 23rd season in Europe’s top flight.
“Well, I started young, I was 15 or 16 playing Champions League with Ljubuski. Starting early, finishing late, it all adds up. It’s a cool milestone, but if there’s one last dream, it would be to win the Champions League. That would be the fairy-tale ending,” the Croatian goalkeeper explains.
Mirko Alilovic was close to making his dream a reality with Veszprém, stepping on the court for the EHF FINAL4 in Cologne in four consecutive seasons, from 2013/14 to 2016/17. The 2016 final against Kielce remains a sobering memory — a match that slipped away despite a commanding second-half lead.
“That season we won almost everything by an inch — the Hungarian cup after penalties, the league title by one goal, the SEHA League by two goals against Vardar after beating Meshkov Brest on penalties. Everything fell into place for us,” Alilovic remembers.
“In the semi-final in Cologne we managed to get a draw against THW Kiel and won in overtime. So, I really believed this was our year, we were going to win it… but then Kielce came. We were 28:19 up with 14 minutes to go. I was sitting on the bench, Roland Mikler and I were already talking about it, thinking we were so close, this must be it. We were not celebrating yet as you know it’s not over until it’s over, but you can’t help but think about it.”
But then, it seemed like the world stopped and Kielce’s magic comeback started, leaving Veszprém’s fans in disbelief.
“Things unraveled. We lost a few balls, they came back to four or five goals behind. I know I came between the posts 10 minutes before the end — we had two chances to go up by two and missed both. Then [Karol] Bielecki missed a penalty, we missed again, and when [Krzysztof] Lijewski scored, we cracked.”
Kielce got level in the final second.
“Mentally, we were done. Even though we got to the penalties, it was impossible to come back from blowing a nine-goal lead in 14 minutes. I never watched that game again, only saw that final goal,” Alilovic says. “It’s one of the rare games I played that I haven’t watched and never will. It was a shock, left a bitter taste that took years to forget.”
If we had won by five or six goals, maybe we would relax a bit. This way, we know we got to play the full 60 minutes at 100 per cent. We are not going there to defend, we are going to try to win.
