“I’m doing very well, I’m on the mend, I still have the wound healing process ahead of me and it’s progressing well,” said the 36-time national team player, who underwent surgery around six weeks ago, just four days after he was diagnosed received.
“Of course it was a shock at the beginning,” said Lindner (“One is also afraid that everything else would be a lie”). And that was three months after becoming a father for the first time. “When you build a family, such a diagnosis is a shock that goes to the spinal cord. But my family helped me a lot.” Above all, Lindner’s wife Anna-Christina, who ultimately sent her husband to the doctor and thus played a decisive role in the rapid healing process.
Heinz Lindner about his cancer
Goalie Heinz Lindner talks about his cancer diagnosis and the consequences.
“I had felt it for a while”
In the conversation, Lindner, who was already working as a legionnaire for Sion in Switzerland at the time, remembered that something was wrong. “I’d felt it for a while, like a year,” he said, noting that the situation was complicated and he didn’t think it required immediate medical attention.
picturedesk.com/Keystone/Georgios Kefalas ÖFB team goalie Lindner has been playing in Switzerland since 2017 – with interruptions
“It wasn’t easy, it was a process. It was a tugging, not even a pain like that, and just very irregular. Once there, then gone again for three months. I then told my wife, who then said I should have it looked at,” said the goalkeeper. Four days after the diagnosis, Lindner underwent surgery, but of course that was the end of the football season.
Return to the training ground
This week Lindner returns to the training ground. “I’ll start my preparations again on Thursday in Sion, so the training will of course be adjusted there,” added the goalie. It is also unclear whether Lindner will stay with the club at all, after all they have been relegated from the Swiss Super League. It is the fourth Swiss club for the man from Linz, who played for Wiener Austria for a total of ten years.
“I still have two years of contract, we like it very much, we feel very comfortable, but the sporting situation is of course not desirable with regard to the national team,” said Lindner, who was last on home leave in Vienna, on Monday had lunch with the ÖFB team and will attend the key home game against Sweden in the Ernst Happel Stadium on Tuesday. At 1-1 in Belgium, the ÖFB fans dedicated a banner to the goalie.
Not alone with fate
Incidentally, Lindner is not alone in top-class sport with the diagnosis of testicular cancer. In Germany, Dortmund striker Sebastien Haller had to sit out in this regard before he returned furiously this spring with nine goals. Fate befell the Austrian volleyball player Max Thaller (“The diagnosis simply puts everything into perspective”), as did the Norwegian ski superstar Aksel Lund Svindal and the fallen American cycling star Lance Armstrong before his Tour de France successes, which were then disallowed for doping .
Professional athlete with testicular cancer
Goalie Heinz Lindner has now had a successful operation – he suffered from testicular cancer. He is not alone in the sports world with this diagnosis.
Competitive sport and this disease are not causally related. “According to the current data, competitive sport has no connection with testicular cancer. The risk is age, testicular cancer is a disease of adolescent adults. Attention should be paid to that,” explained Dr. Paul Engelhardt, specialist in urology. If the tumor is detected in time, the chance of recovery is 95 percent, and the Austrian Cancer Aid also recommends self-examination by palpation.