analysis
Christoph Daum shaped the Bundesliga as a coach. He was a master of motivation and self-promotion. He celebrates his 70th birthday on Tuesday.
There it was again, that typical, loud Daum. “Chemotherapy is like doping“, he said in an interview at the beginning of the year. Radiate optimism, show no weaknesses, look ahead. In this way, he has made a name for himself nationwide as a football teacher.
His message: Christoph Daum is moving forward. No matter what, no matter what happens. Not even cancer treatment can stop him. If you want to learn to win, you should turn to Daum. That’s how it was always, and that’s how it was in the face of a serious lung cancer illness with 22 rounds of chemotherapy.
“Of course it was nonsense”, he says now, a few months later. Daum rows back. This is how the native of Zwickau, who grew up in Duisburg, often did it in his long coaching career. He made himself heard, sometimes crossed (verbal) boundaries, and drew all the attention to himself. It was always part of a game, his game.
Not a particularly talented player
Daum was successful at a time when it was mainly ex-professionals and old internationals who were allowed to try their hand at coaching. Because he had something substantial to offer his clubs and his players in addition to big words. This is how he became what he is today. Daum has been an internationally respected trainer for many years.
Daum belonged to a generation that had to loudly draw attention to itself because otherwise it would never have been heard. He has this in common with his coaching colleague Peter Neururer. And they both recognized that. Daum and Neururer were not particularly talented professionals themselves, but played in amateur leagues. But they really wanted to get into this professional business. And for this they promoted the issue on their own behalf until the audience’s pain threshold was reached. Both are completely different characters. This approach unites them.
Discussion in the current sports studio
Daum was convinced that he could make it in the Bundesliga and could even do it better than most of those who tried there. He first became assistant coach at 1.FC Cologne, and after around a year he was already in the head coach’s chair in 1986. From the relegation place, he led the Billy Goats to two runner-up championships and came third once. He was loud even back then.
For example, when he sharply attacked Jupp Heynckes, the then coach of main rival FC Bayern, in the final spurt of the 1988/89 season. “The weather map is more interesting than a conversation with Jupp Heynckes,” Daum complained, among other things. The arguments culminated in a verbal skirmish in ZDF’s current sports studio, in which Daum, Heynckes and Bayern manager Uli Hoeneß dueled.
This was also a nationwide commotion because sports programs at the time were rather staid – and such a riot was not planned. The decisive duel against Munich was lost 3-1 on the 31st matchday, but still: Daum had become the champion of the challenge on ZDF that evening at the latest.
Motivational games
A number of titles and triumphs followed, such as the championship with VfB Stuttgart in 1992, three Turkish national titles with Fenerbahce and Besiktas Istanbul, an Austrian championship with Austria Vienna, and two cup victories.
Daum’s spectacular motivational performances are also particularly memorable. For example, when he appeared at a game in a dazzling blue suit for a promotional partner. Or when it became known that he stuck 40,000 marks on the locker room door to additionally motivate his Cologne players to play a game. Or he walked barefoot over hot coals with his Leverkusen players. Daum was always a football-teaching entertainer who used the public stage for himself and his cause.
Cocaine consumption and national coach
Of course, he wasn’t immune to failure either. When he spectacularly gambled away the championship with Bayer 04 Leverkusen on the last matchday of the 1999/2000 season with a defeat at SpVgg Unterhaching (0-2). FC Bayern triumphed again.
He suffered what was probably his greatest personal defeat in October 2000 when, as designated national coach, he stumbled across a hair sample that showed he had used cocaine. Daum had submitted this sample and claimed a little pompously: “I do this because I have an absolutely clear conscience.”
However, the Institute for Forensic Medicine at the University of Cologne proved him wrong, as a result of which he was no longer considered as a national coach and for around two months Florida in the USA fled.
The remorse of the caught man
At a press conference called afterwards in a Cologne hospital, he rowed back. He admitted that he had the substance “occasionally in private areas” have taken.
“I am ready to take responsibility, my behavior was not right”he said, showing genuine remorse. This is also the loud Christoph Daum. On Tuesday (October 24th, 2023) he will celebrate his 70th birthday.