Maybe soak up the sun in Mallorca. Or diving in the Maldives. A safari in Africa certainly wouldn’t have been bad either. “I would have preferred if I had gone away,” said Christoph Daum in a good mood to the SID on the day before his 70th birthday: “And not had all this hustle and bustle around me.”
But now Daum is gathering some friends around him in Cologne on Tuesday and together they are watching the Sky documentary “Daum – Triumphs & Scandals” about the eloquent master trainer and great entertainer. Afterwards we go to a restaurant to eat and celebrate. And chat – about then and tomorrow.
Triumph and scandal
Few people have packed as much life into seven decades as Daum. He was revered like a saint. On the one hand. And there were the long dark phases, on the other hand: the cocaine scandal, the subsequent public hostilities, the fight against cancer.
Fighting and not giving up was always part of Daum’s life. “I’m trying to live and not let cancer dominate my life and behavior,” he said and then passed on what was probably the most important advice of his life: “I can only tell everyone: Go for cancer screening.”
It was never boring with him. “Christoph Daum has always been and always is one of the people, for the people,” said Daum. He stands by “the things I have done. Sure, I would have liked to have left some out, but they are part of my CV. That’s called life,” he says in the Sky documentary. The diagnosis of lung cancer last year “sounded like a death sentence”, but after 22 chemotherapy treatments, which he ironically describes as “doping”, Daum believes he is on an “extremely positive” path.
Daum also spoke about his health in the STAHLWERK Doppelpass on SPORT1 last Sunday. “The cancer cells regress. I have always learned to fight. Cancer chose the wrong body. I will fight,” emphasized the good-humored coaching legend.
From the major league to master coach
Daum, who never made it beyond the top league as a player, began his coaching career at 1. FC Köln in the mid-80s, became head coach at the age of just 32 and quickly became Bayern’s number one hunter. He shaped legendary championship finals such as in 1992 with VfB Stuttgart or in the drama surrounding Bayer Leverkusen’s lost championship in Unterhaching in 2000. He was an inspiration for famous companions like Matthias Sammer (“Daum was a visionary”) or Rudi Völler (“He made players better”).
“The players’ hearts were crying!” This is how Daum experienced his master drama
As the often dubbed “speaker of the league”, Daum provoked people with sensational TV appearances, had his players walk over broken glass and was always in constant conflict with Uli Hoeneß, which culminated in the infamous sports studio duel in 1989. As part of the documentary, Daum reconciled with the honorary president of Bayern Munich at a personal meeting at Lake Tegernsee. “I certainly didn’t just make friends. Today I can say that I have made peace with everyone – including Uli Hoeneß,” said Daum.
At the height of his career – shortly before fulfilling his dream of becoming a national coach – Daum fell over the cocaine affair and the fatal hair test in October 2000. The sentence “I do this because I have an absolutely clear conscience” became a cultural asset in German football history and was followed by one of the biggest sports scandals. “The biggest mistake” of his life, says Daum, haunts him to this day.
“I’ve done a lot of shit in my life. But when I look back, the positive things are in the majority.” As a coach, Daum was a guarantee of success. The Zwickau native won ten positions and ten titles with four clubs in three countries. And above all: he moved the masses.
In addition to the championship with VfB, Daum also won the national league title with Austria Wien in Austria and the two traditional Turkish clubs Besiktas and Fenerbahce; he is still revered in Istanbul to this day. Daum ended his career as Romanian national coach in 2017.
“I have far exceeded all the expectations I had for my life. I lived a life in the fast lane,” said Daum. Even if it crashed many a time.
With Sports Information Service (SID)
2023-10-24 18:56:21
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