Inside the Bosnian ties that bind Nashville SC's Adem Sipić and Amar Sejdić

The first Nashville SC game Adem Sipić ever attended, a 2-2 draw against CF Montreal on May 24, 2021, featured a two-goal rally for the hosts and a second-half synchronicity.

In the 84th minute, Montreal made a substitution. Sipić, then an NSC academy player, saw the substitute's name — Sejdić — and knew right away he was Bosnian, just like him.

Three years later, Sipić was training with Nashville SC's first team. Amar Sejdić was now his teammate. During the team's first preseason practice in Florida, Sipić bore down on goal, preparing to pass. But before he could, he heard Sejdić yell "pucaj!" — Bosnian for "shoot!"

Sipić swung his leg. The ball hit net.

Sejdić, 27, is a journeyman midfielder on his third MLS team in four years. Sipić, 18, is a highly touted striker who's the first player from Nashville's academy to sign a first-team contract. Sejdić jokingly calls Sipić his son.

But while those differences are stark, Sejdić and Sipić have similarities that are just as defining. Both are children of Bosnian war refugees. Both grew up in Kentucky, spending most of their waking hours kicking a soccer ball. Both have blazed a trail to Major League Soccer. And this season, their trails have intersected.

"(Sejdić) helped me feel welcome into the team even though he was new as well," Sipić said. " . . . He's just like an older brother."

"When I was with Atlanta (last season), I saw Nashville made its first homegrown signing and it happened to be a Bosnian kid," Sejdić said. "With minorities, when you see your own people doing great, you get happy."

Adem Sipić, Amar Sejdić both grew up in Bosnian families

Sejdić has few memories of life outside the United States. His father, Rizah, grew up near the town of Modriča in north Bosnia and Herzegovina, at the time one of six constituent republics that made up Yugoslavia. His mother, Elvira, is from Derventa, near Modrića. They met in Germany in the early 1990s, both fleeing war.

Amar was born in Berlin in 1996. When he was 4, another influx of refugees led Rizah and Elvira to emigrate again.

"Essentially, they did it for me," Amar said. "To give me a better chance at life and an opportunity to make something of myself."

Sejdić isn't sure how his family decided on Louisville. There were refugee sponsorship programs in Jacksonville, Florida, and Sacramento, California. But Rizah and Elvira had met other Bosnian refugees in Berlin who already were living in Louisville. They'd heard from them that the city had a low cost of living and plenty of jobs.

Per the Urban Institute, Louisville received about 3,000 Bosnian refugees between 1994 and 2004. The Sejdićs lived in a lower-income apartment complex with plenty of familiar faces: One of Amar's aunts lived right across the block, and he had an uncle, cousins and other family friends in his building, too.

While Louisville's Bosnian community is sizable, Bowling Green's is even larger. Bosnians make up about 10% of the population, according to Kentucky Entertainment Television. Ahmedin Golubović, the president of youth soccer organization BG Elite FC, estimates there are about 15,000 Bosnians there today.

Sipić's father is from Banja Luka, the second-largest city in Bosnia, and his mother is from the Serbian side of the country. They met after coming to America in 1995 and lived in Minnesota before moving to Tampa, where Adem was born in 2006. They moved to Bowling Green in 2015 to be closer to family.

Sipić calls Bowling Green's Bosnians "welcoming," "respectful," and always willing to lend a hand. It's more spread out than in Tampa, where there was one main Bosnian neighborhood that Sipić's family lived in. According to Sipić, every neighborhood in Bowling Green will have at least some Bosnians.

Sejdić used to visit Bosnia annually, where his grandparents lived until 2019. Right next to their house was a soccer field, where he would play from sunrise to sunset with local kids. Sipić has been to Bosnia three times, but his most vivid memories are from his last trip there, when he was 14.

"Bosnia has been through a lot with the war," Sipić said. "Some places are not rebuilt yet. But the places that are there are beautiful — probably the most beautiful places in the world."

Bosnian-Americans share passion for soccer

The Bosnian War began in 1992, shortly after the breakup of Yugoslavia. Bosniak, Serb and Croat forces fought each other over three-plus years that saw an estimated 100,000 deaths and displaced more than 2 million people. Ethnic cleansing was emblematic of the conflict, with the 1995 Srebrenica massacre one of the most infamous events.

Sipić lost members of his family in the war: aunts, uncles, his maternal grandfather. Though he was born a decade after their deaths, it's still difficult for him to process.

"As a kid, you're just like, 'There was a war,' " he said. "When you grow up and realize everything that did happen, you see that it's a lot more than just a war."

Bosnian refugees in America have had to cope with trauma and rebuild their community at the same time. In Louisville, Rizah Sejdić owns BH International Market, a store selling traditional Bosnian and Balkan food products like burek and ajvar. For Amar, the store represents the community Bosnian-Americans have had to form during three decades, one where cultural ties have similar importance to family ties, with relatives separated by war and flung all over the globe.

"When your people go through a life-changing event and a lot of them get displaced, they're separated from their brothers and sisters, you tend to find your people as your family and community," Amar said.

Soccer, as much as anything, holds that community together. Rizah played professional soccer in Germany, and Amar has played as long as he can remember. Sipić's father had his career derailed by the war, but Sipić started playing when he was 2. The Bosnian passion for soccer is especially evident in Bowling Green, where the Bosnian Islamic Center hosts games and players ages 5 to 50 compete.

"In the United States, you can see baseball, football, basketball, tennis," Golubović said. "In Bosnia, we only play soccer."

Both Sejdić and Sipić owe much of their success to Bosnian coaches. Sejdić’s first youth soccer club in Louisville was United 1996 FC, run by Muhamed Fazlagić. In Bowling Green, Golubović helped start BG Elite in 2007, wanting to add a competitive, fundamental-focused dimension to the blossoming soccer scene. Sipić joined BG Elite soon after moving to Bowling Green and stayed with them until entering the Nashville SC Academy in 2020.

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It was Golubović who took Sipić and two other teenagers — Ammar Delić and Andrei Jahić — to try out for the academy when it opened. Delić plays for NSC's U-17 team, while Jahić is now with Croatian powerhouse Dinamo Zagreb. Sipić's younger brother and cousin are slated to join the academy next season.

"Our life growing up was go to school, come back, start playing, go train for hours," Sipić said. "All the Bosnians . . . everyone wanting the same thing and having the same mentality helped."

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A Bosnian soccer identity

Sejdić has been one of Nashville's most-used substitutes this season, appearing in more than half of the team's games. Sipić is still working toward his first-team debut. He currently plays for Nashville's MLS Next Pro affiliate, Huntsville City FC, but occasionally drives north to train with the first team.

Sejdić described Sipić as quiet and reserved, but saw him come out of his shell during the team's January and February training camp. The two shared drills, meals and chats about what it takes to make it in professional soccer: patience, persistence, resilience.

Almost all of those talks are in Bosnian, both Sejdić and Sipić's first language, though they speak English around teammates. Sipić's family is currently trying to ensure his younger brother learns fluent Bosnian, while Sejdić plans to teach the language to his 5-month-old daughter.

Sejdić's biggest skills are his passing and technical play, while Sipić, as a tall, physical forward, has looked up to and patterned his game off countryman Edin Džeko. Sejdić and Sipić don't play anything alike, but if you take Golubović's word for it, that's the point. The Bosnian soccer identity isn't a style of play à la Spain's tiki-taka or the jogo bonito of Brazil. It's a mentality; a pure love for the sport that binds Bosnian players together.

"We're gritty," Sejdić said. "We like to get down and dirty if we have to."

"There's something mentally that's like, we have to be aggressive and give our all, always," Sipić said. "We're always hungry . . . It's just in every single one of us."

Jacob Shames can be reached by email at jshames@gannett.com and on Twitter @Jacob_Shames.