The longtime football coach Christoph Daum has reported good progress with his cancer therapy. He is “currently in phase two, the immune therapy. This should lead to the threatening cancer condition becoming a chronic one,” said the 69-year-old from “Sport Bild”. “It would be wishful thinking to believe that we could conquer the cancer and say: It’s gone. For me it’s more about being able to say: We have it under control and I can grow old with it. That will still require some therapy. “
Daum made his illness public via Instagram last October. As he now said, his lung cancer was found during a routine check-up last summer. “Irregularities occurred, as a result of which the lung carcinoma was discovered. That’s why I can only advise everyone over the age of 50 to have regular check-ups,” he told the newspaper.
He smoked until the day of diagnosis. “I smoked between half a pack and a pack a day. That definitely contributed to my illness.” Then, after 38 years, he stopped from one day to the next. “It’s purely a matter of will. That’s how I am,” said the former master coach of VfB Stuttgart.
His qualities as a coach and motivator are now a help, reported Daum. “My whole life has been about getting up from defeat and winning the next game. The fact that constant struggle is a big part of my life has now become an advantage,” he explained. “I have an uninvited guest in my body that I have to fight against all the time. I will face it and I will drive it away or at least limit it so that we can live well together.”
Daum was a coach in the Bundesliga for many years. He was a coach at 1. FC Köln in the 1980s and 2000s. In 1992 he won the German championship with VfB Stuttgart. When he was a coach at Bayer Leverkusen, he was even considered a candidate for the post of national coach. His appointment was prevented in 2000 by Uli Hoeneß, who made Daum’s cocaine addiction public, after which he resigned. Daum also enjoyed great success as coach of Fenerbahce Istanbul and Besiktas Istanbul, both of whom he led to the Turkish championship. With Austria Wien he was Austrian champion.
