Aleksander Saric: The Backbone of Loyola Soccer

Following the upheaval of the women’s soccer coaching staff early in the summer of 2024, women’s interim head coach Angela Staveskie was left with the task of filling several vacant coaching positions.

Her first decision was made in late July when Loyola Athletics announced the hire of Aleksander Saric as the team’s assistant goalkeeper coach. Saric had previously served Loyola as a part-time assistant with the men’s team during their 2023 campaign.

Saric — nicknamed “Sarki” by some in the Athletics department — remains with the men’s team in the part-time role, but has seen a significant increase in duties as a full-time member of the women’s squad.

In his second year at Loyola, Saric offers a wealth of professional playing and coaching experience, both abroad and in the Chicago area, with a goalkeeping focus.

Born in Belgrade, Serbia, Saric said he couldn’t have imagined being anything but a goalkeeper from a young age.

“I become goalkeeper very early, ” Saric said. “When I start to play soccer, I realized that I like that most and I never thought that I will be anything else than a goalkeeper. I always like that diving, flying and all these things — for me to be a goalkeeper is to like to be an air force, and to be a player it is like infantry.”

As a young player, Saric dreamt of playing professionally and got his first chance with his boyhood club, Red Star Belgrade, where he played in their academy from 1986 to 1991.

In 1991, Red Star had a tremendous campaign which saw them win the European Cup. Despite not being on the senior squad then, Saric had the opportunity to work with senior players in training sessions.

After several more years of playing in Serbia, Saric had his first opportunity to play internationally with FC Carl Zeiss Jena, a team in Thuringia, Germany. 

He and his partner had been living in Austria at the time to avoid Yugoslavian sanctions and researching a better life in the near future before joining the team, according to Saric.

It was also at FC Carl Zeiss Jena where Saric first started thinking about pursuing a coaching career, he said. At Jena, his team didn’t have a goalkeeper coach and the 20-year-old Saric was put in a position by his manager to help provide training and methodology for his older competition.

Saric said this situation at the club was the first time he recognized his desire to provide a “transfer of knowledge” in a coaching position.

Following his first stint in Germany, Saric’s 20-year career allowed him to travel across much of Europe and parts of the Middle East. His goalkeeping abilities were utilized in Portugal, Israel, Romania, Austria, Slovakia and later in his return to Serbia.

After retiring from professional play, Saric tried his hand at being a soccer agent and working on player contracts, but a “need for competition” led him to professional coaching.

In addition to earning an “A” level UEFA coaching accreditation, Saric had tremendous success as a coach, notably with the U-20 Serbian national team and its World Cup winning campaign in 2015. He established the B1 Goalkeeping Academy in Serbia in 2010, whose motto is “Be One, Be The First, Be A Winner.”

Saric said his coaching style revolves around a diagnostic review of a goalkeeper’s strengths and weaknesses, and improving those specific areas.

“Everything in the middle will naturally go up when they improve these two ends of problem,” Saric said.

For women’s redshirt first-year Allison Deardorff, Saric’s approach has centered around possession and control. 

“Not letting any rebounds come off, keeping it in like our area and just always being focused, ready for the next shot,” Deardorff said.

In 2016, Saric made his way to the Chicago Fire as a member of the team’s technical staff, following head coach Veljko Paunovic, who was also head coach of Serbia’s U-20 2015 World Cup run. 

The position was unexpected, as Saric received an offer only after former club president Nelson Rodriguez was unhappy with a potential candidate’s English proficiency and contacted Saric — a trilingual speaker of English, German and Portuguese alongside his native Serbian tongue.

During his four year stint with the Fire, Saric established a Chicago chapter of the B1 Academy in 2017 and said he worked with Northwestern University’s soccer program.

After ending his tenure with the Fire in 2020, Saric maintained his work with B1 and signed on with local team Panathinaikos Chicago in 2021.

Head coach Steve Bode said he found Saric after the departure of former assistant coach Wesley Woodley and was focused on bringing in a replacement from the Chicagoland area.

Familiar with Saric’s work with the Fire, Bode said he called him out of the blue and asked if he wanted to get involved with collegiate soccer. Saric agreed and the two met at a local Starbucks in early June 2023, where they had a two hour conversation.

The position offered was only a part-time role, but Saric was impressed by Bode’s approach — clear demands of what he wanted from both the role and the goalkeepers.

“When someone is clear with his demands, then you can say ‘okay, there is a reason to work for this man because it’s so clear,’” Saric said.

In Saric’s first season with the team in 2023, then-redshirt first-year Aidan Crawford found significant success between the posts, earning the Atlantic 10 Goalkeeper of the Year award and appearances on the A10 All-Rookie and First teams.

Not only has his European background been a strong point of connection with international players, but his professional playing experience helps identify situational knowledge for the group, according to Bode.

“[Saric] is timeless,” Bode said. “He’s played this game all over the globe and these experiences that he’s collected, he’s just able to really speak truth in the situations because he’s probably experienced it somewhere along the line as a player or coach, somewhere around the world. The guys really are drawn to that.”