KARABATIC Luka

General
CLUB LEADER
He is captain of Paris Saint-Germain and in May 2021 he signed an extension with the club through to 2024. "The prolongation symbolises the level of attachment I have to PSG." Prior to joining PSG in 2015, he played for Montpellier and Pays d'Aix UC. (PSG Handball Twitter page, 20 May 2021; psg.fr, 01 Jan 2021)

FAMOUS BROTHERS
He and older brother Nikola are among France's most decorated handball players at both domestic and international level. The brothers, who both joined PSG in 2015, admit they have a close relationship but have always been competitive with each other. "When we were younger, the age difference was more pronounced, and I usually suffered because of this. A game of karate would end with a kick to my face, or he'd pull the blanket over my head so I couldn't breathe, or he'd have fun spinning the bicycle wheels and then make me stick my fingers in it, things like that. A game of FIFA [football video game] could quickly descend into a fight, throwing controllers against the wall and not speaking for days." Luka says they have even had disputes while playing for the national team. "I remember a training camp in Slovenia a few years back, it was very intensive training, and at one point Nikola and I were facing off against each other in a running exercise. Things started to get heated, a bit of pushing, and we ended up squaring off against each other. We didn't come to blows, but it was close. We didn't speak for four days after that." (programme-tv.net, 21 Apr 2021)