German football coach Christoph Daum lost battle with cancer

(Patria) - Legendary German football coach Christoph Daum has passed away at the age of 70 after a long battle with cancer.

His life was marked by great victories, but also by falls, such as the famous cocaine affair, reports Deutsche Welle.

"Daum passed away peacefully surrounded by his family after a long battle with cancer," the family said in a statement to the dpa agency.

Daum died on Saturday in Cologne, aged 70. He was one of the most prominent coaches in professional football for many years.

He had been battling the disease since the autumn of 2022. Initially, he withdrew from public life, but soon after, he returned.

He gave interviews and appeared on shows again. His message was: "Cancer picked the wrong body." With his fighting spirit, he wanted to encourage other people.

The conflict with cancer was symbolic of his entire life. Even as a child, he clashed with peers who were actually much bigger and stronger than him, a skinny boy from Duisburg.

As a young and still unknown coach of 1. FC Köln, he surprised everyone when he challenged the great Bayern Munich and its manager Uli Hoeneß, and almost brought down the Bundesliga dominator from Munich.

Even later in life, no challenge was too great for Daum. However, the higher he reached, the deeper he fell.

Shortly after winning his first Bundesliga title with VfB Stuttgart in 1992, he lost the Champions League qualifiers due to an error in player substitution.

The cocaine affair in 2000 became particularly legendary, costing the then coach of Bayer Leverkusen the opportunity to become the coach of the German national team.

But Daum recovered from that too. He won more titles in Austria and Turkey, brought 1. FC Köln back to the Bundesliga and kept them there.

And throughout his turbulent life, he repeatedly uttered these words: "You can fall. It doesn't matter how many times you fall. What matters is that you get up again and again."