At the age of 70, Christoph Daum passed away defeated by cancer
Daum had been battling lung cancer since the fall of 2022. He was a coach with a long career in various clubs.
Christoph Daum, an exuberant man and coach, passed away at the age of 70, defeated by an incurable disease. In recent months it is true that he could hardly sleep. For days he had no strength to do even the simplest things. His chemotherapy treatments were gradually draining the energy from his body.
Of course he himself would never admit it. Such was his character. Tough, warrior. Whenever he was able to speak on the radio he emphasized: "I will continue to fight."
On Saturday (24/8) however, the former great coach left peacefully surrounded by his family. After all, in the last few days he was in Cologne with his family and was nowhere to be seen.
He had been battling lung cancer since the fall of 2022. At first he withdrew from the public eye, but soon the old Daum resurfaced: giving interview after interview, appearing on talk shows or appearing on podcasts. "Cancer chose the wrong body," was his key message. Daum wanted to use his fighting spirit to encourage other people.
The fight with cancer was symbolic for his whole life. Even as a child, he fought with classmates who were actually much taller and stronger than the little boy from Duisburg. As a young and still unknown manager of 1. FC Cologne, he completely unexpectedly declared war on the great FC Bayern and their manager Uli Hoeneß - and almost toppled the Bundesliga reigning power. Even in later life, no challenge was too great for Daum.
The cocaine case cost Daum dear
But the higher he aimed, the deeper he fell. Shortly after his first Bundesliga title with VfB Stuttgart in 1992, he missed out on UEFA Champions League qualification due to a substitution error.
As one of the best managers in Bayer Leverkusen's history to date, the legendary cocaine case in 2000 prevented his already secure job as national team manager.
But Daum is back. Again and again. He won further titles in Austria and Turkey, led 1. FC Köln back to the Bundesliga and kept them there. And he said these sentences over and over again throughout his adventurous life: "You can fall. It doesn't matter how often you fall. You just have to keep getting back up." Only cancer prevented him from stopping.
Daum never complained
By the end, his comrades were impressed by Daum's fighting spirit. In October 2023, Daum swayed to the music of "Höhner" with many of them at his 70th birthday party in a Cologne restaurant. Among those present were former world-class player Michael Ballack and DFB sporting director Rudi Völler. Even then, Daum's body was scarred by cancer. He never complained about it.
It's "unbelievable how Christoph uses his popularity to highlight his serious illness and try to give people with the same fate a little hope," said Völler, who once worked as sporting director at Leverkusen with coach Daum. Ballack's former player stressed that Daum was "a role model for a lot of people, even in these difficult times".
Public reconciliation with Hoeneß
In many people's eyes, the cancer also changed the image they had of Daum until then. Because of his biography, Daum was either respected or despised, there was hardly anything in between. His handling of the disease won him sympathy beyond the confines of sports. Even his former longtime nemesis, Uli Hoennes, publicly reconciled with Daum and appeared on camera with him as part of a television documentary.
And no matter how you remember Daum: as a joker, a provocateur, a motivational artist, a messiah, a quasi-national coach or a permanent runner-up with Leverkusen - there was never a dull moment with him. "Others raise their children bilingually, I raise them with both feet," he once said. Or: "The difference between good and great is often just a toe." It is not only proposals like these that will be missing from German football in the future.
Manos Staramopoulos
Journalist and Analyst of International Football and Affairs
Chief Editor English Zone of Discoveryfootball.com
Athens (Greece)
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