All about winning battles
Lusitania player Dalibor Planinac defends against Ital-Inter during Manitoba Soccer Association Cup action last night. JASON HALSTEAD/SUN MEDIA
All about winning battles
By KIRK PENTON, SUN MEDIA
Dalibor Planinac has been through enough in his life that the score shouldn't matter anymore.
Maybe, however, he's still here because the score has always mattered.
The 27-year-old sweeper for Winnipeg's Lusitania senior men's soccer team received a jolt in November 2005 that no one should have to endure. A poster boy for health, the former soccer pro from Croatia was told by a doctor that he had Hodgkins lymphoma.
CANCER.
"I never drank in my life, never smoked in my life," Planinac said last night. "I never even tried."
Maybe, however, he's still here because the score has always mattered.
The 27-year-old sweeper for Winnipeg's Lusitania senior men's soccer team received a jolt in November 2005 that no one should have to endure. A poster boy for health, the former soccer pro from Croatia was told by a doctor that he had Hodgkins lymphoma.
CANCER.
"I never drank in my life, never smoked in my life," Planinac said last night. "I never even tried."
The doctors told him his disease was 85% curable. Never before had 15% seemed so big to the 6-foot-3, 175-pound Serbian.
"Better 85% than 50%," he said. "I was shocked. I was happy that I live here with my family, because I didn't have to work. I mean, you can't work.
"The treatments were really hard, really hard, really hard. But I fought through it."
Planinac endured eight months of chemotherapy. He got two treatments a month, and the first week after each session was spent in bed. Just as he started to feel somewhat normal again, he was off to another treatment.
He gained more than 50 pounds thanks to the steroids that restored his appetite. His hair fell out. Just when he thought life couldn't get any worse after leaving war-torn Croatia in 2000, after his home had been destroyed and some of his extended family had been killed, it was.
"The doctor said, 'Make sure you don't give up during the treatments. If you give up, you're pretty much done,' " Planinac said. "Lots of people go for treatments and they stop in the middle of it because it's so hard to handle it."
Planinac didn't give up, and now he's back on the pitch. He played for Sokol during his first five years in Winnipeg, but the team folded during his cancer battle.
The reason he decided to make his comeback with Lusitania is simple: That's where his brother, Dragan, had signed up to play.
"I decided that after what I went through to spend more time with my brother," Planinac said. "I didn't really care how well we were going to do. Playing with my brother was more important, because I realized that no one knows what can happen in life."
Other top-notch local players, like Nano Romero, followed Planinac to Lusitania, and the side is not only surviving its first season in the Manitoba Major Soccer League's Premier Division; it's thriving.
"Dalibor has been one of our top players, no doubt. He's very good," Lusitania manager Rick Moreira said. "He's one of the strongest, best defenders in the whole league."
Last night Ken Sacramento scored as Lusitania downed Ital-Inter 1-0 in a Manitoba Soccer Association Cup senior men's semifinal. Lusitania will play the powerhouse Sons of Italy Lions in tomorrow night's final at the Winnipeg Soccer Complex. Game time is 7:30.
The Sons of Italy edged Hellas SC 1-0 in last night's other semifinal on a second-half goal by Ryan Dyck. The winner of tomorrow night's final will advance to the Canadian club championship in Halifax in October.
The women's final will also be played tomorrow. Sweat Shack will take on Team United at 1 p.m. at Norm Konowalchuk Soccer Stadium (Red River).
And even though, in the big picture, tomorrow night's score between Lusitania and Sons of Italy doesn't matter, it still does to Planinac.
"It does, actually," he said. "I'm very competitive. I don't like to lose."
That much is evident.\
"Better 85% than 50%," he said. "I was shocked. I was happy that I live here with my family, because I didn't have to work. I mean, you can't work.
"The treatments were really hard, really hard, really hard. But I fought through it."
Planinac endured eight months of chemotherapy. He got two treatments a month, and the first week after each session was spent in bed. Just as he started to feel somewhat normal again, he was off to another treatment.
He gained more than 50 pounds thanks to the steroids that restored his appetite. His hair fell out. Just when he thought life couldn't get any worse after leaving war-torn Croatia in 2000, after his home had been destroyed and some of his extended family had been killed, it was.
"The doctor said, 'Make sure you don't give up during the treatments. If you give up, you're pretty much done,' " Planinac said. "Lots of people go for treatments and they stop in the middle of it because it's so hard to handle it."
Planinac didn't give up, and now he's back on the pitch. He played for Sokol during his first five years in Winnipeg, but the team folded during his cancer battle.
The reason he decided to make his comeback with Lusitania is simple: That's where his brother, Dragan, had signed up to play.
"I decided that after what I went through to spend more time with my brother," Planinac said. "I didn't really care how well we were going to do. Playing with my brother was more important, because I realized that no one knows what can happen in life."
Other top-notch local players, like Nano Romero, followed Planinac to Lusitania, and the side is not only surviving its first season in the Manitoba Major Soccer League's Premier Division; it's thriving.
"Dalibor has been one of our top players, no doubt. He's very good," Lusitania manager Rick Moreira said. "He's one of the strongest, best defenders in the whole league."
Last night Ken Sacramento scored as Lusitania downed Ital-Inter 1-0 in a Manitoba Soccer Association Cup senior men's semifinal. Lusitania will play the powerhouse Sons of Italy Lions in tomorrow night's final at the Winnipeg Soccer Complex. Game time is 7:30.
The Sons of Italy edged Hellas SC 1-0 in last night's other semifinal on a second-half goal by Ryan Dyck. The winner of tomorrow night's final will advance to the Canadian club championship in Halifax in October.
The women's final will also be played tomorrow. Sweat Shack will take on Team United at 1 p.m. at Norm Konowalchuk Soccer Stadium (Red River).
And even though, in the big picture, tomorrow night's score between Lusitania and Sons of Italy doesn't matter, it still does to Planinac.
"It does, actually," he said. "I'm very competitive. I don't like to lose."
That much is evident.\
posted by Brent Boulter at Sunday, August 19, 2007
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