Martin Erlic #25

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Only a few days after playing in the 2023 Nations League final against Spain, Erlic was in the field helping out at his family farm. “When I was a child, we lived under the same roof with farm animals, only a wall separated us,” he once said in a revealing interview. “There were hard times and we collected bottles to sell them… no shame in that though,” he added. Erlic left his country for Italy at the age of 16 and struggled with many club changes, loans and injuries. When he made his senior international debut in June 2022, the call-up was so unexpected that he had to miss his brother’s wedding in order to play. “I felt sorry,” he says. “But this is what all the training and the sacrifices I made have come down to.”

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