Christoph Daum: The cancer-stricken coach turns 70

He’s not doing particularly well, you could even say he’s doing poorly. Christoph Daum, one of the most famous German football coaches, has lung cancer. A diagnosis that pulls the rug out from under others’ feet. But what does Daum do? He celebrate!

He turns 70 on Tuesday, October 24th. He says not celebrating his milestone birthday was never an option. So he invited around 200 friends and companions to a Brazilian restaurant in Cologne. Before that, you watch excerpts from a film that the TV channel Sky made about him in a cinema. The documentary “Daum – Triumphs and Scandals” will be broadcast on Sky and Wow next Friday. It is a journalistic reappraisal of Christoph Daum’s life. But he would also be suitable as the main character of a feature film because he has a lot to offer with his daring mentality and an adventurous past.

The documentary shows the story of an intelligent and extremely ambitious young man who, after graduating from high school, studied sports science and geography to become a teacher and started a breathtaking career as a youth coach at 1. FC Köln, with eleven titles in Germany, Austria and Turkey to his credit stand. But Daum can also serve with a striking negative side, which is part of every good story.

Christoph Daum almost became DFB coach

At the peak of his sporting career – after a German championship with VfB Stuttgart, a cup victory, a championship in Turkey (with Beşiktaş Istanbul) and a near-championship with Bayer Leverkusen – he beat Michael Ballack (47) with a legendary own goal in Unterhaching – to become coach of the German national team in 2001. His then-intimate enemy Uli Hoeneß (71) said in an interview about the “sniffy Daum” that the DFB couldn’t start a “No Power to Drugs” campaign “and Mr. Daum might have something to do with that…”

This statement not only caused turmoil in football Germany. Millions of self-proclaimed experts point to Daum’s supposedly strange, piercing look, saying it’s crystal clear that someone like him is always on speed or something else. The way he behaves on the sidelines…

Daum publicly protests his innocence and independently arranges for a hair analysis for drug residues: “I do this because I have an absolutely clear conscience.” This sentence will be his downfall. A few days later, a report from the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the University of Cologne found that he had consumed cocaine. He is dismissed as coach of Bayer Leverkusen without notice, and the DFB terminates his contract as national coach. Daum is exhausted and flees to Florida.

The public gets the impression of a drug-addicted liar who has used cocaine to create an illusory world that denies all reality and makes him believe that even a voluntary hair test cannot harm him… that he “previously had an anonymous hair analysis abroad had it carried out, the result was negative. I believed that I had nothing to fear and agreed to this sentence, even if I didn’t have an absolutely clear conscience. This sentence still comes back to haunt me today. But: I said it, I take responsibility for it.”

This is how cocaine use came about

how his coke consumption came about. He found himself in a difficult situation after separating from his first wife Ursula. “You’ve had something to drink, friends or acquaintances are there and say: ‘Come on, let’s all have it, it’s not bad.’ And then when you find yourself in an unstable life situation, as was the case with me, you think to yourself: ‘So what?’ Then you take something to do a kind of self-test to see how it works.”

He also worked successfully afterwards, again in Turkey (two championships with Fenerbahçe Istanbul), in Austria (championship and cup victory with Austria Vienna), as national coach of Romania (qualification for the 2018 World Cup). Even though the big hit in the Bundesliga was no longer there (apart from a promotion with 1. FC Köln), Daum was rehabilitated in terms of sport.

In his private life, everything was also going more smoothly again: in 2007 he married the musical singer Angelica Camm, with whom he has a son and a daughter (plus two children from his first marriage). The wedding ceremony will take place in the center circle of the Cologne stadium, as befits the status. This symbolism suits Daum. He is now fighting for his good reputation because one thing has remained with him: people know that he can fight, that he never gives in. Whatever the cost.

But then he gets sick. In the summer of 2011 it became known that he was suffering from skin cancer. And Christoph Daum, who was previously considered an extroverted loner, suddenly has an aura of tragedy surrounding him. Only Franz Beckenbauer (78) had recognized this in him ten years earlier. “He is sick, he has to be cured,” said the then DFB vice-president when Daum’s cocaine affair became known. After several operations, Daum declared that he had survived skin cancer, but in May 2022, after a routine examination, the former smoker was told that he had metastases on the fourth thoracic vertebra, and later cancer cells were also discovered in his lungs.

Christoph Daum had 22 chemotherapy treatments

Of course, the diagnosis also comes with fears, but Christoph Daum doesn’t let that imprison him. In the TV documentary he talks about his 22 chemotherapy treatments, he tells how he lost weight and hair, how he is fighting for his life and the therapies have a “positive effect”, “the cancer cells shrink slightly”. As his doctor gives him hope: “You are an extremely easy-going patient. You never complain, you have an extremely positive attitude.” The cameras follow him to the university clinic for chemo, he is hanging on the tube. “This drip always shows me a little bit about our finitude,” he says on the hospital bed.

Uli Hoeneß called him and encouraged him; he even went to Lake Tegernsee for the TV documentary and met the honorary president of FC Bayern. The two former enemies talk to each other, and Hoeneß says that “only two great personalities could fight each other like that.” Daum replies that this sentence “very touched” him.

After the birthday party, he would like to celebrate a big Christmas with his wife, children and grandchildren. They want to go to Austria together, at least he’s planning until then.

When asked seriously about his cancer whether he would smoke marijuana “to relieve pain,” Daum answers with a smile: “No, I refuse that. I’m fed up with all kinds of drugs!” There he was again, his fall from grace from over 20 years ago. He will stay with him no matter what happens.

Christoph Daum knows this and says it’s just part of his vita: “That’s what you call life.”