Borussia Dortmund, who finished second in the German Football League, lost the efforts of their new Ivory Coast striker Sebastian Haller even before he played one official match in the team’s colors, after he was diagnosed with testicular cancer, reported club on Monday.
“A tumor in the testicles was discovered” after “extensive medical examinations,” Dortmund said in a statement explaining that the 28-year-old striker “felt unwell after Monday morning training” in Bad Ragaz, Switzerland, where the team is training. for the new season.
Dortmund added, according to its sporting director Sebastian Kehl, that Haller will undergo “further tests at a specialized medical centre. The news we received today (Monday) was a shock to Sebastian Haller and to all of us. Sebastian a speedy full recovery… We will do our best. We are doing our best to provide him with the best possible treatment.”
The Ivory Coast striker joined Dortmund this summer from Ajax Amsterdam to boost his attacking ability following the departure of top scorer Erling Haaland to Premier League champions Manchester City.
Haller returned to the Bundesliga after previously playing in league competition between 2017 and 2019 wearing an Eintracht Frankfurt shirt.
He later moved to the English Premier League to join West Ham (2019–2021) before defending the colors of Ajax, who he signed in January 2021.
El Adji put on a superb performance in the last season of the Champions League, scoring 11 goals, including four in a 5–1 win over Sporting Portugal in the first round of the group stage.
He thus became the first player to score for the Super Hattrick quartet in his early days in the Champions League since Dutchman Marco van Basten’s quartet for AC Milan against Sweden’s Gothenburg in November 1992.
Ajax’s Champions League campaign ended at the cost of a final that halted the Ivory Coast’s scoring festival in the main continental competition, but he continued his local brilliance and ended the Dutch championship, in which his side was crowned, with 21 goals in 31 . games.
Haller scored 47 goals in the Ajax jersey in 65 matches in various competitions.
On Monday, Dortmund urged “the privacy of the player and his family to be respected and not to ask any questions”, promising to publish the events “in agreement with the player … as soon as we have more information.”
– “It can happen to any man at any time” – Testicular cancer is not new in football, as France goalkeeper Joel Butts recovered from it in the eighties, as did former Atlético Madrid and Deportivo La Coruña goalkeeper José Francisco Molina, who in turn recovered and later became a coach.
Another goalkeeper developed testicular cancer in the person of Argentinean Carlos Roa, who was treated for it, but he decided to end his playing career.
Argentina’s Jonas Gutiérrez, a former Newcastle player, played “the hardest game of his life” against cancer in 2014 before returning to the stadiums after an 18-month absence.
There is no doubt that Haller will not be with Dortmund when the team resumes the new season of the German league on August 6 against Bayer Leverkusen, knowing that before that it will play the first round of the local cup against a third-tier team. TS in 1860 Munich on the 29th of the current month.
