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Watch Dejan Lovren’s Refugee Documentary Right Now For Free

The Liverpool defender opens up about growing up as a refugee far from home

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A couple weeks ago LFCTV released a short documentary on Dejan Lovren’s childhood. Titled, Lovren: My Life as a Refugee, the Reds centreback talks about leaving his home in the former Yugoslavia as a toddler, fleeing from a war that would tear the region apart over the next decade. His family settled in Germany before being forced to relocate again, and he ultimately managed to settle in Croatia, which he now represents in international football.

The documentary highlights, in his own words, Lovren’s struggle to grow up while he and his family struggled as asylum-seekers.

“I wish I could explain everything what happened. You hear so many stories, but nobody knows the real truth. It just happened. It just changed everything through the night - war between everyone, between three different cultures. People just changed - we heard so many stories on the radio and the television.”

The documentary is now on YouTube and available to watch for free down below.

While you’re here, be sure to check out this excellent fanpost essay from former contributor Elizabeth. It’s about the documentary and the immediate (and somewhat distasteful) response to it from some corners of the fanbase. But in a broader sense it’s also about what it actually means to be a Liverpool fan and about how, in a world of gathering darkness and cruelty where the default modus operandi is increasingly Fuck You I Got Mine, standing with the vulnerable and marginalized amongst us is a radical act.

And if you’d like to do something to help, the UNHCR is always accepting donations and has other ways for you to get involved.

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