Tijana Bošković, born on March 8, 1997, is a Serbian opposite whose career is anchored by two FIVB World Championship titles, two World Championship MVP awards and Olympic silver and bronze medals. A left-handed scorer with a listed height of 194 cm and a spike reach of 329 cm, she has been one of Serbia’s central attacking players since entering the senior national team as a teenager.
Bošković spent ten seasons with Eczacıbaşı in Türkiye before moving across Istanbul to VakıfBank in 2025. Her first season there supplied one of the major prizes that had previously been missing from her résumé: the CEV Champions League. She won the 2026 title after producing 34 points in the semifinal and 33 in the final, then received both Final Four MVP and Best Opposite honors.
Her international record is even more distinctive. Serbia won the World Championship in 2018 and 2022 with Bošković named MVP on both occasions, while her European Championship career includes gold in 2017 and 2019, silver in 2023 and bronze in 2026. She has also played at three Olympic Games, winning silver at Rio 2016 and bronze at Tokyo 2020.
Player Information
| Field | Information |
|---|---|
| Full Name | Tijana Bošković |
| Date of Birth | March 8, 1997 |
| Nationality | Serbian |
| Born | Trebinje, Bosnia and Herzegovina |
| Position | Opposite |
| Height | 194 cm |
| Weight | 85 kg |
| Spike Reach | 329 cm |
| Block Reach | 310 cm |
| Dominant Hand | Left |
| Previous Clubs | ŽOK Hercegovac, OK/Partizan Vizura, Eczacıbaşı |
| Current Club | VakıfBank |
| Club Number | 19 |
| National Team | Serbia Women’s National Volleyball Team |
| National-Team Number | 18 |
| Sibling | Dajana Bošković — professional opposite and Bosnia and Herzegovina international |
| @coti_18 |
Early Life & Volleyball Beginnings
Bošković was born in Trebinje, in present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina. Volleyball was not her first sport. She practised karate as a child before gravitating toward volleyball, beginning in the youth system of ŽOK Hercegovac. Her development accelerated quickly enough that she moved to Belgrade at 14 with her older sister Dajana.
She entered the Vizura system in 2011 and spent four seasons there as the club identity evolved through OK Vizura and Partizan Vizura. By the time she left Serbia in 2015, she had already collected domestic trophies and had gone from a promising youth player to a senior international.
The national-team pathway moved just as quickly. Bošković helped Serbia win the 2014 European junior title and was named tournament MVP. Later that year, at 17, she made her senior World Championship debut and finished as Serbia’s leading scorer at the tournament. That combination of youth-level dominance and immediate senior production established the pattern that would follow her through the next decade: she was given major attacking responsibility unusually early and continued to handle it as the level increased.
Her move to Türkiye in 2015 therefore came after she had already experienced both senior club volleyball and a global national-team tournament. She was still only 18 when Eczacıbaşı brought her to Istanbul.
Club Career
Vizura and the First Senior Titles
Bošković’s senior club development took place with Vizura in Belgrade. She played professionally there from 2011 to 2015, winning the Serbian Championship in 2013–14 and Serbian Super Cups in 2013 and 2014. The period was short in comparison with the decade that followed in Türkiye, but it gave her first-team volleyball before most players of her age had settled into senior roles.
The timing of her progression was important. By 2014, she was simultaneously winning at junior international level and being trusted with substantial scoring responsibility for Serbia’s senior team. When Eczacıbaşı signed her for the 2015–16 season, the transfer was less a speculative move for a prospect than the next step for a player who had already shown that she could score against senior international opposition.
A Decade with Eczacıbaşı
Bošković joined Eczacıbaşı in 2015 and remained for ten seasons, an unusually long single-club period for an elite foreign player in modern women’s volleyball. The first major international reward arrived immediately: Eczacıbaşı won the 2016 FIVB Club World Championship, with Bošković named both MVP and Best Opposite.
Her role grew from young scorer to the central attacking figure of the team. She won the CEV Cup in 2018, taking the competition’s MVP award, and helped Eczacıbaşı collect Turkish Cup and Super Cup titles. From the 2020–21 season she also held a captaincy role alongside libero Simge Aköz.
The second half of the decade brought another CEV Cup title in 2022 and a run to the 2023 Champions League final. Although Eczacıbaşı lost that final to VakıfBank, the season showed how much of the club’s high-level offense continued to revolve around Bošković after eight years in Istanbul.
Later in 2023, Eczacıbaşı returned to the top of the world-club podium by winning the FIVB Club World Championship in Hangzhou. It was Bošković’s second Club World title with the club. When Eczacıbaşı announced her departure in May 2025, its official farewell summarized a ten-year spell that included two Club World Championships, two CEV Cups, three Turkish Super Cups and a Turkish Cup.
That longevity matters when reading her club career. Bošković did not build her reputation by changing teams after every successful cycle. For a full decade, Eczacıbaşı repeatedly built high-level attacking systems with her as a defining piece.
VakıfBank and the Missing Champions League Title
The move to VakıfBank before the 2025–26 season created one of the most significant club transfers of her career. She remained in Istanbul and in the Sultanlar Ligi, but switched from the club she had represented for ten years to one of its principal domestic and European rivals.
The first season produced immediate results. VakıfBank won the Turkish Cup and Turkish League before reaching the Champions League Final Four in Istanbul. In the semifinal against defending champion Conegliano, VakıfBank fell two sets behind before completing a five-set comeback. Bošković scored 34 points in the semifinal, the highest total in the match.
The final placed her opposite Eczacıbaşı. Bošković delivered 33 points, including 31 winning spikes, as VakıfBank won 3–1. The victory gave her a first Champions League title after years of deep runs and near misses. She finished the European campaign with 217 points and was named Final Four MVP and Best Opposite.
That completed a Champions League–Turkish League–Turkish Cup treble in her debut season with VakıfBank. The next campaign began with another trophy: VakıfBank defeated Eczacıbaşı 3–2 in the Turkish Super Cup on October 6, 2026.
Club Career Timeline
| Seasons | Team | Country |
|---|---|---|
| Youth career | ŽOK Hercegovac | Bosnia and Herzegovina |
| 2011–2015 | OK Vizura / Partizan Vizura | Serbia |
| 2015–2025 | Eczacıbaşı | Türkiye |
| 2025–present | VakıfBank | Türkiye |
National Team Career
Teenage Debut and the First Olympic Medal
Bošković’s senior Serbia career began at the 2014 World Championship when she was 17. Rather than being used only as a developmental player, she immediately became an important scorer. The following season brought medals at both the 2015 FIVB World Cup and European Championship, showing how quickly Serbia had incorporated her into a team already competing for major podiums.
Rio 2016 was the first Olympic peak. Serbia reached the gold-medal match and finished with silver, the country’s first Olympic medal in women’s volleyball. By then Bošković was no longer simply the gifted teenager in the lineup; she was becoming one of the national team’s primary terminal attackers.
The transition was complete by 2017. Serbia won the European Championship and Bošković was named MVP. That title began a three-season run in which her individual awards and Serbia’s biggest results became closely connected.
World and European Championship MVP Years
At the 2018 World Championship in Japan, Serbia won its first women’s world title. Bošković scored 26 points in the five-set final against Italy and finished the event with 193 points. She was named tournament MVP, adding the sport’s highest global individual tournament honor to her European MVP award from the previous year.
Serbia then defended its European crown in 2019. Bošković scored 23 points in the final against Türkiye and completed the tournament with 142 points. CEV named her EuroVolley MVP for the second consecutive edition.
At the Tokyo Olympics, officially the 2020 Games but held in 2021, Serbia added bronze to the Rio silver. Bošković’s Olympic résumé therefore contains medals of two different colors, achieved across consecutive Games.
The 2022 World Championship provided perhaps the strongest statistical demonstration of her role in Serbia’s offense. Serbia completed the tournament undefeated. Bošković scored 240 points and produced 36 in the quarterfinal against Poland, 33 against the United States in the semifinal and 24 against Brazil in the final. Her second World Championship MVP award made her only the second player at the time to win that honor at multiple editions of the tournament.
The repeat mattered beyond the award itself. Four years had passed between Serbia’s world titles, the team had changed coaches and personnel, yet Bošković remained the primary high-volume scorer through both championship cycles.
Captaincy, Recent Setbacks and the 2026 Podium
By the 2023 European Championship, Bošković was captaining Serbia. The team reached another final, this time against Türkiye in Brussels. The match became a direct scoring duel between Bošković and Melissa Vargas: Bošković finished with 37 points, Vargas with 41, and Türkiye won the fifth set 15–13. Serbia took silver.
Bošković continued as captain at the 2025 World Championship in Thailand. She opened the tournament with 19 points against Ukraine, but suffered a right ankle injury during Serbia’s second pool match against Cameroon. The injury forced her out of the remainder of Serbia’s run, and the defending champions were eliminated by the Netherlands in the round of 16.
The following international season put her back on a major continental podium. Serbia reached the semifinals of EuroVolley 2026, lost to hosts Türkiye, then defeated Poland 3–1 for bronze. Bošković was again central to the scoring in the medal match, including nine points in each of the opening two sets as Serbia secured its sixth consecutive EuroVolley medal.
That 2026 result extended a national-team career that had already covered more than a decade, three Olympics, multiple coaching cycles and two World Championship-winning teams.
Playing Style & Strengths
Bošković’s defining volleyball trait is the ability to carry a very large scoring load without becoming only a volume attacker. She is a left-handed opposite with a listed 329 cm spike reach, and the combination of reach, contact height and left-handed approach makes her especially difficult to contain from the right side. Serbia and her clubs have repeatedly trusted her with the difficult swings that arrive late in rallies, after imperfect first contacts or when the offense has become predictable.
The strongest evidence comes from knockout matches rather than isolated highlight plays. At the 2022 World Championship, she scored 36 points in the quarterfinal, 33 in the semifinal and 24 in the final. In the 2026 Champions League Final Four, she produced 34 against Conegliano and another 33 against Eczacıbaşı. Those performances came against elite blocking and defensive systems in matches where opponents knew where a large share of the decisive sets would go.
Her scoring profile is built primarily around attack. In the 2026 Champions League final, 31 of her 33 points came from winning spikes. That does not make her a one-dimensional player—her height gives her useful blocking presence and her serve can add direct pressure—but the reason teams structure their offense around her is the reliability of her first-ball and transition scoring.
There is also a repeatability to her technique. Bošković has maintained elite production under different setters, coaches and team structures, from the Serbia teams of Zoran Terzić and Daniele Santarelli to long club cycles at Eczacıbaşı and then Giovanni Guidetti’s VakıfBank. The system around her can change significantly while her core job remains recognizable: turn a high number of attacking opportunities into points, including when the opponent has organized specifically to stop her.
That is why her best matches are often not defined by one spectacular sequence. They are defined by the number of times a team can return to her over four or five sets without the offensive solution disappearing.
Major Achievements
Selected National Team Honors
| Year | Competition | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 2015 | FIVB World Cup | Silver |
| 2016 | Rio Olympic Games | Silver |
| 2017 | CEV European Championship | Gold |
| 2018 | FIVB World Championship | Gold |
| 2019 | CEV European Championship | Gold |
| 2020 | Tokyo Olympic Games | Bronze |
| 2022 | FIVB World Championship | Gold |
| 2023 | CEV European Championship | Silver |
| 2026 | CEV European Championship | Bronze |
Selected Club Honors
| Year / Season | Team | Competition | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2013–14 | Partizan Vizura | Serbian Championship | Winner |
| 2016 | Eczacıbaşı | FIVB Club World Championship | Winner |
| 2018 | Eczacıbaşı | CEV Cup | Winner |
| 2019 | Eczacıbaşı | Turkish Cup | Winner |
| 2022 | Eczacıbaşı | CEV Cup | Winner |
| 2023 | Eczacıbaşı | FIVB Club World Championship | Winner |
| 2025–26 | VakıfBank | Turkish Cup | Winner |
| 2025–26 | VakıfBank | Turkish League | Winner |
| 2025–26 | VakıfBank | CEV Champions League | Winner |
| 2026 | VakıfBank | Turkish Super Cup | Winner |
Selected Individual Awards
| Year / Season | Competition / Award | Recognition |
|---|---|---|
| 2014 | European Junior Championship | MVP |
| 2016 | FIVB Club World Championship | MVP, Best Opposite |
| 2017 | CEV European Championship | MVP |
| 2017–2019 | CEV Awards | Female Volleyball Player of the Year — three consecutive years |
| 2018 | FIVB World Championship | MVP |
| 2018 | CEV Cup | MVP |
| 2019 | CEV European Championship | MVP |
| 2022 | FIVB World Championship | MVP, Best Opposite |
| 2026 | CEV Champions League Final Four | MVP, Best Opposite |
Family & Personal Life
Volleyball also runs through Bošković’s immediate family. Her older sister, Dajana Bošković, is a left-handed opposite who has represented Bosnia and Herzegovina internationally. The sisters spent years following separate national-team paths before finally meeting across the net at senior international level during EuroVolley 2021.
That match had an unusual family dimension: two sisters from Trebinje, playing the same position and using the same dominant hand, representing different national teams. CEV described it as their first national-team match against one another.
Before volleyball became her career, Tijana also practised karate. Her move from Trebinje to Belgrade as a teenager became the decisive sporting transition, placing her in the Vizura system and closer to Serbia’s youth and senior national-team structure.
Her long period in Türkiye has also shaped her public life away from matches. CEV has reported that she speaks Serbian, Turkish and English, reflecting a career in which Istanbul has been her professional base since 2015.
Where Is Tijana Bošković Playing Now?
As of late October 2026, Bošković plays for VakıfBank in Türkiye’s Vodafone Sultanlar Ligi. She wears number 19 for the club and remains registered as an opposite for VakıfBank in European competition.
She enters the 2026–27 season after an exceptional first year with the club. VakıfBank won the Turkish Cup, Turkish League and CEV Champions League in 2025–26, with Bošković earning Champions League Final Four MVP honors. The new season then began with another trophy when VakıfBank defeated Eczacıbaşı 3–2 in the 2026 Turkish Super Cup.
Her Serbia career also remains active. She represented the national team again in 2026 and helped Serbia win EuroVolley bronze in September. For Serbia she has continued to use number 18.
The combination of those results leaves Bošković in a different position from the start of her VakıfBank move: she is no longer pursuing a first Champions League title. She begins her second season with the club as the reigning Champions League MVP and as part of a team defending major domestic and European trophies.
Frequently Asked Questions
How tall is Tijana Bošković?
Bošković is listed at 194 cm by current club and CEV sources. Some Volleyball World competition profiles have listed her at 193 cm.
What position does Tijana Bošković play?
She plays opposite. Bošković is a left-handed attacker and has spent her elite career primarily as a high-volume right-side scorer.
Which club does Tijana Bošković play for?
She plays for VakıfBank in Istanbul, Türkiye. She joined the club before the 2025–26 season after ten years with Eczacıbaşı.
What number does Tijana Bošković wear?
She wears number 19 for VakıfBank and number 18 for the Serbia Women’s National Volleyball Team.
How many World Championships has Tijana Bošković won?
She has won two senior FIVB World Championships with Serbia, in 2018 and 2022. She was named tournament MVP at both editions.
Has Tijana Bošković won the CEV Champions League?
Yes. She won her first CEV Champions League title with VakıfBank in 2026 and was named MVP of the Final Four.
Is Dajana Bošković related to Tijana Bošković?
Yes. Dajana is Tijana’s older sister. She is also a professional opposite and has represented Bosnia and Herzegovina internationally.
References
- FIVB — Tijana Boskovic player profile
- CEV EuroVolley — Tijana Boskovic, born to play
- CEV — Tijana Bošković current player and European Cups record
- CEV — Tijana Bošković player measurements and competition profile
- Eczacıbaşı — Contract renewal with Boskovic
- Eczacıbaşı — Teşekkürler Tijana
- Volleyball World — 2018 in review: Boskovic, never too young to be the world’s best
- Volleyball World — Boskovic earns second World Championship MVP award
- CEV — Magnificent Türkiye seal maiden European trophy with dramatic comeback
- Volleyball World — Serbia sweep Cameroon, but Bošković goes down
- CEV — Serbia secure sixth consecutive EuroVolley medal with 2026 bronze
- CEV Champions League — VakifBank stun Conegliano in dramatic comeback
- CEV Champions League — Bošković completes the circle with 2026 MVP performance
- VakıfBank — Club history and 2026 treble
- Türkiye Voleybol Federasyonu — VakıfBank win the 2026 Women’s Champions Cup
- CEV EuroVolley — A special day for the Boskovic sisters
