Anyone watching the Women’s EHF EURO 2020 in Denmark last December would have seen Anastasija Babovic smiling from ear-to-ear on court for Montenegro.

Despite playing just 29 minutes across their six games, including a 31:25 win over Sweden on her 20th birthday where she ended with a 33% save rate (2/6), Babovic impressed with her athleticism and positivity, representing the future of Montenegrin women’s handball.

That future could take another positive turn this weekend as Montenegro look to qualification through to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games via the Tokyo Handball Qualification 2020 – Women’s Tournament 3 in Montenegro’s capital city Podgorica.

The famous women’s club side from the capital, Buducnost, is literally called ‘Future’ and that could not be more apt for Babovic, currently on loan from the club to get first to Hungarian side DKKA Dunaujvaros KA, such is the amount of talent from the country of just over 620,000 people.

“The older players are retiring and we have so many young players [here in Montenegro] we have to work with them if we want the level that Montenegro was at in the last 10 years,” said London 2012 Olympic Games silver medallist Bojana Popovic, who is also head coach of Buducnost and assistant coach to Kim Rasmussen in the national team.

“It's very difficult, as we don’t have a big choice, so we are working very hard with each player to build them up, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t. It's very hard to give them so much [experience] in Montenegro so those who are not [playing] in the Champions League we are sending to leagues around Europe to play so they can grow up little bit there and then we get them back. 

“Sometimes they will go to the good clubs, so they’re good training, but sometimes they go into big clubs where they don’t train good, so they're not going up: it depends where they are going, but also it depends on them, what they want from their career and how much they want to give when they go there. 

“We are fighting for them and fighting for those young players to get as much as we can from the country and we do not stop. We’re working so much at Buducnost to build up those young players, through the Champions League, and then, ultimately for the national team too.”

Babovic is exactly the player Popovic is talking about, with the youngster moving away from Buducnost, to Hungary.

“It was really hard because I'm the kid of Buducnost and they are the first team for me and always in my heart,” said Babovic to ihf.info about the move. “It was hard [at first], but I am young and needed more league, more experience.

“Nowhere in the world you can see the mentality like we have [in Montenegro], this character and heart we show on court, no-one.  That was the hardest for me [when I moved] to accept the different mentality and that they play a different type of handball but if you go to that country and want to play you need to adapt and play by that role.

“During this corona time it has been hard to live alone, without family in a different country, but I know because of what I came for I didn’t think about nothing [else], I just want to play. I want more experience, I want to be the best, I just think about playing and helping the team.

“It’s important I always have something that I need to do,” she added. “For example, now, I want the Olympic Games and I will give my everything to do that, and after Olympic Games I will want something more. I hope that soon I will come back and play in the Champions League for Buducnost, that’s my dream.”

That dream that Babovic had, like many young women in Montenegro, was fuelled by the national team’s London 2012 silver medal, with the then 11-year-old goalkeeper waiting at the airport for the side to return from Great Britain, but for Babovic, it was even earlier than that she realised handball was her destiny.

“I knew I wanted to be the best in the world the first day when I touched a ball,” she said. “I knew that's what I wanted. I started when I was five, handball is my life and at 20 for a young player like me to go to a big tournament (European Championship) and play for your national team, it's unbelievable, we can’t explain our feelings about that. 

“Now, in this moment, we have an opportunity to play for qualification through to the Olympic Games, it's a big thing for us – the Olympic Games is every athletes’ dream.”

Babovic was not intimidated by joining the very players she had posed for pictures with back in 2012 and being around not only those history-making, Montenegrin athlete role models, but playing against legendary goalkeepers like Katrine Lunde here in Norway helps her to continue improving even further.

“You push yourself more,” she said about mixing with the world’s elite players. “It showed that I need to believe in myself, that everything they give me that I can do that, that I deserve that and that I need to use that.

“In that moment, when I’m on court, I think that I'm on the same level as them, but of course I want to be like them because these are some of the best goalkeepers ever and I have some in my head I want to be like them. But when we’re playing, we all want the same: to save the ball and make sure it doesn’t come in the goal.

“When I make a save, I feel like I'm the best and that no one can score against me, and that is when you go up in your head, one save can make you up a lot,” she explained. “For me it’s a dream to save penalties, to help my national team and to save balls from some of the best players in the world.”

Some of those best players will be on court here in Podgorica this weekend and Babovic is fully-focussed on what the goal is, starting with the Norwegians today.

“Everyone knows about Norway, they are the top team for the last 10 years,” she said. “But I think that everything depends on us, if we play 100%, and if we do the things we spoke about doing, we can beat everyone.”

So has Babovic ever asked to see Bojana Popovic, Majda Mehmedovic or Jovanka Radicevic’s Olympic silver medals?

“Yes, I have touched them, but I want my own,” she says with a smile.