Dragan Primorac Posts Poignant Photo: 'As If He Knew It Was Our Last Meeting'

Dragan Primorac has shared a photograph of himself embracing Ivan Gudelj, accompanied by a farewell to the former footballer, who died at the age of 67. Primorac said he was deeply shaken when Croatian war veteran Kristijan “Kike” Petric told him that Gudelj had died. The two men had been friends for more than 35 years.

“

When my friend Kristijan (Kike) Petric told me a few days ago that our dear friend Ivan Gudelj had left us, I was deeply shaken. We had been friends for more than 35 years.

Primorac recalled that he and his brother Damir had met Gudelj just days earlier after running on Marjan. They stopped at the Marjan Gate and spoke at length about recent sporting events, injustices, successes and everything they had experienced over the years. Looking back, Primorac wrote, it now seemed to him that Gudelj had known it would be their last meeting.

“

Today it seems to me as if Ivan knew that it was our last meeting.

He also described a recent coffee meeting in Zagreb with another friend, Croatian war veteran Mate Kalajžić. They talked about life, people, memories and their years of friendship. A few days later, Primorac received the news from his friend Jakov Pavić that Kalajžić had died as well. “People dear to us are leaving, people who leave an indelible mark,” he wrote.

“

The value of a person is not measured by the number of years they spent in this world, but by the mark they left on the people they loved and who loved them.

Primorac linked Gudelj’s legacy to an appearance on the television program Nedjeljom u 2. Gudelj spoke there about illness and death in his family, the end of his football career, his faith and completing university at the age of 42. He said, “The value of a person is not measured by the number of years they spent in this world, but by the mark they left on the people they loved and who loved them.” Primorac said Gudelj and Kalajžić had left exactly such a deep, lasting and unforgettable mark.

“

In my family there are illness and death, unfortunately, but you simply accept it.