During his active career as player Christoph Daum was a no-name. His rise to stardom (sort of) and infamy (sort of) started only when he became a coach.
After he played for the amateur team of 1. FC Cologne, one of our biggest traditional clubs and a former heavyweight in Bundesliga from the 60s to the end of the 80s, he took over as head coach of their first men's team. When he took over as coach during mid season Cologne was facing relegation as they were ranked 16th. But Daum saved the club as they ended the season ranked 10th.
The next season Daum led the club to a 3rd rank in Bundesliga.
The very next season Cologne ranked 2nd and for the following season they ranked 2nd again.
Then the World Cup of 1990 happened and during the WC Daum got fired bc of a one-sided feud from the club president. But with Daum leading a once great club like Cologne back to relevancy again in his first stint as coach Daum proved he was made for greater adventures and bigger success.
In late 1990 Daum took over as head coach in Stuttgart and he repeated what he had already done with Cologne. When Daum took over in Stuttgart they were also facing relegation but Daum saved the club and lead them on the 6th rank. And this time, after saving the club from dropping out of Bundesliga, Daum did the unthinkable and led Stuttgart in the following season to win Bundesliga. A whole active career as a complete nobody but in his overall 5th season as a coach he already managed to win the Bundesliga with a club. What a fucking mad lad.
But the sun is always followed by rain and those who fly high may crash hard and in this saga it was the following season. After winning the national championship Daum crashed and he crashed hard. In Bundesliga Stuttgart only finished as 7th but more important Daum fucked up their Champions League run. Leeds fan might remember this story.
The season of 1992/92 followed the crumbling of the Soviet Union and of Yugoslavia. In 1991 Israel became a member of UEFA. So with these happenings more teams suddendly were alligned with the UEFA and thus somehow qualified for their international tournaments. With more teams being elligable for Champions League the UEAF added two qualification rounds before the group stage with the qualification matches being two-legged.
In the very first round Stuttgart faced Leeds United.
Stuttgart won the first match 3:0 while Leeds won the second match 4:1. So who moves on? Right. Nobody. Because the 2nd match was thrown out of the window bc of Christoph Daum and a third match had to be played. The younger kiwi frens in this thread probably won't know or some might not remember but back then teams were limited to use only 3 foreign players per match. This only got changed by the courts in 1995 with the so-called Bosman ruling. So what did Daum do to fuck it up for Stuttgart? Well, he substituted a fourth foreign player during the second match against Leeds. Leeds protested, a third match was set up in a near empty Camp Nou, Leeds won the match 2:1 and moved to the next round.
What a fucking idiot. The English press labelled him "Christoph Dumb" and the German fans labelled him "Christoph Dumm" (dumm = dumb). Daum was given another shot in Bundesliga but after the first half of the new season Stuttgart was only ranked 13th and Daum got fired. Embarrassed Daum left the Bundesliga and Germany - and moved on to Turkey; which became his 2nd home.
Daum hired at Besiktas Istanbul, led them to win the Turkish Super Lig, had his reputation restored and after a short time Daum was back again in Bundesliga but this time he had joined Bayer Leverkusen for the 96/97 season. And the genius coach was back as he led Leverkusen to become immediately vice champions. In the 1997/98 season Leverkusen ranked 3rd and then two more seasons with Leverkusen becoming vice champions followed.
In the 1999/2000 season the Vizekusen curse manifested as Leverkusen fucked up winning the Bundesliga on the very last matchday with a loss against the small town club of Unterhaching; which "coincidentally" belongs to the district of Munich. Unterhaching made the big FB Bayern champions this season.
2000 was Euro Cup year and the Euro Cup didn't go very well for the German national team. In fact it went fucking horrible for our squad bc as the reigning Euro Cup winners we fucking didn't make it out of the group stage. But there was hope. A youn, wild and very promising coach: Christoph Daum. But Daum being Daum he fucked up - again.
At this part of the Daum's story I have to go back a little back and mention something else as it becomes a very crucial part. You see, when Daum started as head coach in Cologne he immediately started bashing heads with some people; the bosses of FC Bayern Munich. Back then Uli Hoeneß was a leading figure at Bayern and probably the most powerful person in Germany's world of football. The feud between Daum and Hoeneß was firced as both are very hot headed guys and none of them backing down from anything. Legendary and hilarious battles were fought throw interviews and both showing up in tv shows. Being the dark emperor of FC Bayern and within the DFB that Hoeneß was he got hold of a dark secret Daum was hiding.
What is this nose hiding?
After the embarrassing Euro Cup 2000 the DFB contacted Bayer Leverkusen bc they wanted Christoph Daum as new national coach. Leverkusen agreed and Daum was supposed to leave Leverkusen after the 2000/2001 season. When this became public the evil mastermind Hoeneß made his move: In a now infamous and legendary interview he mocked the DFB's decision of chosing Daum as new coach bc at the same time the DFB was running an anti-drug campaign in public. Uli Hoeneß, in that interview, made some remarks that Christoph Daum might be use his nose not only to smell good food and good wine. That Christoph Daum might be a connoisseur of a certain white substance that is usually consumed through one's nose.
Infuriated and offended by these remarks Christoph Daum held a press conference, denying everything and offered some of his hair for a drug test - and it backfired bc Io and Behold the test outed Daum as freaking Tony Scarface Montana. The amount of coke in Daum's hair suggested that this guy was made of only the purest Bolivian marching powder.
"Ich tue das, weil ich ein absolut reines Gewissen habe."
("‘I do this* because I have an absolutely clear conscience.")
*this = the voluntary drug test
Daum got immediately fired from Leverkusen, the DFB back downed from their deal, a court later fined him for 10k Euro and Daum once again fled Germany - and hired at Besiktas. Again. But with no success and he soon joined Austria Wien, won the Austrian championship and then joined Besiktas's rivals of Fenerbahce Istanbul. There he won back to back the Turkish Super Lig before he retired in his third year bc of health reasons.
He then showed up in Germany again, led his first big love, the FC Cologne, back to Bundesliga and fucked off to Turkey. Again. For Fenerbahce. Again. But no success was upon him anymore so he quickly left Istanbul and then showed up at my club of Eintracht Frankfurt where he wasn't able to save us from relegation and he was gone. After losing seven games in a row he stepped down as Eintracht coach but our fate was already sealed. Back then I saw them playing live and I saw Daum at the side of the pitch. A broken man, trying his best but nothing helped our troubled and demotived squad. It was sad to see this once huge, huger than life person IRL. Nothing was left of the big motivator who glued tens of thousand of dollars to the door of the locker room in Cologne to motivate his players. Nothing was left of the big motivator who went bare footed of glass sharts to show his players that everything is just mentally and everybody can overcome anything.
Short stints in Brugge, another club in Turkey and as coach of the Romanian team followed before Daum finally retired from coaching.
In 2011 Daum fought skin cancer and survived. Yesterday he lost his fight against lung cancer.
A pal had a DSC season ticket for years. Top lass. Things not quite so rosy nowadays, sadly.
