Daum died on Saturday in Cologne. He was 70 years old. For many years he was one of the most dazzling coaches in professional football. From October 2002 to June 2003 he coached Austria Vienna during the era of patron Frank Stronach and led them to the Austrian double.
Daum has been battling the disease since autumn 2022. He initially withdrew from public life, but that changed shortly afterwards. Daum gave interviews again and appeared on talk shows. “Cancer chose the wrong body,” was his core message. Daum wanted to encourage other people with his fighting spirit.
His struggle with cancer symbolized his entire life. Even as a child, he fought with classmates who were actually much bigger and stronger than the skinny boy from Duisburg.
No challenge too big
As a young and still unknown coach of 1. FC Köln, he unexpectedly issued a challenge to the great FC Bayern and its manager Uli Hoeneß – and almost toppled the Bundesliga dominator from Munich. Even in his later life, no challenge was too big for Daum.
But the higher he aimed, the deeper he initially fell. Shortly after his first Bundesliga championship with VfB Stuttgart in 1992, he lost the chance to qualify for the Champions League due to a substitution error. The cocaine scandal in 2000, which cost the then coach of Bayer Leverkusen his chance to become national coach, became legendary.
But Daum also came back from that. He won more titles in Austria and Turkey, led 1. FC Cologne back into the Bundesliga and kept them there. And throughout his eventful life he kept saying these sentences: “You can fall down. It doesn’t matter how often you fall down. You just have to keep getting up.”
