“My little one just wants to live”
Under tears: Ex-Bundesliga professional talks about daughter-suffering daughter
19.09.2025 – 7:27 p.m.Reading time: 2 min.
The daughter of longtime HSV professional Dennis Diekmeier is seriously ill. Under tears, he now explains why he believes in a miracle.
The long-time Bundesliga professional Dennis Diekmeier spoke in a moving interview with Sport1 about his daughter Delani’s serious cancer. The 34-year-old and his family have been under emotional permanent pollution for months. Delani suffers from a rare, aggressive form of cancer.
At the beginning of the year, Diekmeier and his wife received the news that fundamentally changed the life of the family. A malignant kidney tumor was found in her then 14-year-old daughter Delani. Although this could initially be removed, but shortly afterwards it turned out that metastases had formed in both lungs. Since then, the family has been fighting together against the disease.
“Of course we brutally hold together,” said Diekmeier, currently assistant coach at the regional league team SV Sandhausen, in an interview with “Sport1”. The many medical decisions that had to be made would require a lot. However, the support in the circle of friends and family helps: “We have to make many decisions- about therapies, about alternatives. To classify all of this is not easy. But we stick together, and our friends and family also support ourselves enormously. The cohesion is huge and we all believe in a miracle.”
So far, several operations and chemotherapy have not brought the desired success. Immunotherapy is currently underway. It is uncertain whether this is striking. For Diekmeier it is clear: “Then hope will go on. We will not give up. We have to tackle it positively, otherwise we’ll break.”
The former Bundesliga player describes the moment of diagnosis. He stood during training when his wife called several times. “I called back and she said, ‘The doctors called, we have to go to the hospital immediately, they want to talk to both of us. I knew immediately: something is wrong here.” The day after the operation, the couple learned about the rare and aggressive tumor, which hardly occurs in children. The forecast: five to ten percent chance of survival. If the therapy does not work, life expectancy is a maximum of one to five years. “Everything collapsed,” Diekmeier recalls.
How Delani reacted to all of this was deeply impressed by the father. “You are sitting there, finished – and your daughter only says: ‘I can do it. I am one of the few who can do it.’ My greatest respect how my little one deals with the whole situation. “
For this reason, the family decided early on to make history public. The encouragement from outside is an important source of strength for Delani, according to Diekmeier: “If she was encouraged by others, not only from us, that gave her an extremely much strength.”
Diekmeier itself also sees an open communication to encourage other families in similar situations. “I don’t know how it does – but this smile gives us strength,” said Diekmeier. “And our family cohesion, the support of friends, the many news – all of this gives us power. This interview will also give my daughter a lot of energy. My little one only wants to live.”