Re-newcomer Jean-Paul Boetius defeated the cancer twice. With the lilies, he now wants to become sporty again – with the same property with which he has survived the disease.
Maybe there is no better place for Jean-Paul Boetius to play football again. At the home games of SV Darmstadt 98, fans are on the Jonathan home grandstand. Its counterfei has also sprayed on the wall of the sports hall on the stadium, together with the saying “You have to fight!”, Which Lilien-Fan Heimes once shaped. The saying has become an unofficial motto of the club, Heimes lost his years of fight against cancer, but his heir can be felt everywhere in the lilies.
And so the context in which Boetius, Darmstadt’s new ten, moves, is a slightly different way than at other Bundesliga locations. What Boetius has had to experience is not alien to the environment of the lilies. Boetius had to defeat cancer twice, after a year and a half without a club he hired im Winter at Darmstadt 98 to. “It is a lot of gratitude in me. I have been without a club for a long time. But now I’ve finally arrived,” said Boetius in a press round on Wednesday.
Boetius: “I thought I was already on the ground”
Sick, that sounds so harmless, after runny nose and bed rest. In Boetius case, however, says: testicular tumor. 2022, in the service of Hertha BSC, he gets the diagnosis, and will be operated on as soon as possible. After only four weeks he is back on the pitch. You have to fight! His contract with Hertha ends, new employers are adorned.
Then the next shock: the cancer is back. The illness believed has overwhelmed the retroperitoneal lymph node, Boetius must undergo chemotherapy with subsequent rehabilitation. “I thought I was already on the ground because I had no club. Then the disease came back and I was even worse,” says Boetius.
Boetius: “It wasn’t always easy”
Every year, around 500,000 people in Germany develop cancer, more than 230,000 die, practically every person is confronted with the illness throughout their life, whether directly or through relatives or friends. Sober numbers, but every individual case is a disaster for those affected, a shocking life event, drastic, changing.
Chemo, rehab, for Boetius, professional football is suddenly endlessly far away. He had always been perfect. Large in the youth of Feyenoord Rotterdam, he debuts the professionals in 2012, became Dutch cup winner and supercup winner, later champion in Switzerland, in 2014 he plays an international match for the Elftal, under Louis van Gaal and alongside Robin van Persie and Wesley Sneijder. In the German Bundesliga, he plays 143 games, scores twelve goals. In view of the disease, only names and numbers, in the difficult time family and friends are there for him. “It wasn’t always easy, but I received a lot of love and turned my eyes ahead,” says Boetius.
Boetius: “There is always someone in the world who is worse”
Anyway, the look ahead: What Boetius distinguishes in the field also carries it through life through the illness. “This is my way, I am very positive. There is always someone in the world who is worse. Why should I complain?”
At SV Darmstadt 98, Boetius now wants to return to professional football, slowly, step by step, “I’m certainly not at 100 percent,” he says. With the lilies that are waiting for a win all year round, Boetius can become a fixed point with its class and experience. So far, he has had three second division missions for the Darmstadt with a total of 102 minutes of play. Boetius is a technically strong offensive player who, the way would have just run, would probably not play in the second division.
Boetius: “If you feel something, go to the doctor”
And also with his personality. “I’m someone who brings a lot of people together,” he says. “I am doing everything with looseness. Not only because I have experienced the disease. That’s how I am. I also tackle this situation seriously. Because I hate losing it.”
He has already won the one important fight, even twice. “The first time it didn’t hurt, but the cancer was there for three months. The second time I had pain and went to the doctor,” he says. And then it almost sounds like a request: “If you feel something, go to the doctor. It doesn’t take two minutes.”
