Dutch Footballer Returns to Pitch After Overcoming Spinal Tumor

Revealed during his team’s relegation, the right winger has managed to stand out. Despite remarkable performances, he still shines in the second division. Far from complaining, he savors every moment. He tells AD: "I know I can play in the Eredivisie with my eyes closed. [...] But I won’t sign somewhere just to sign. FC Volendam is the club where I’ve spent the most time as a professional footballer. Here, I feel trust, warmth, appreciation, and I’m having fun. [...]"

Volendam represents much more than just a club for him. It has been a refuge since late 2021 and the club that supported him through the ordeal. He himself consulted, alerted by persistent pain: "[...] I had a big blockage in my back, and I felt that something was really not right. Finally, I asked for an MRI myself, and it turned out that I had a five-centimeter tumor in my spinal cord."

The announcement was a shock. Football then took a back seat. "The feeling you have at that moment, I can’t describe it. [...] Football becomes completely insignificant." Then, the emergency surgery: "Everything went so fast [...] I was lucky to be taken care of by the ’Ferrari of surgeons’."

After a gradual recovery, he finds his way back to the field. "At first, I wondered: how am I going to get over this? [...] There, we say to ourselves: I can still play. We can’t believe it," he recalls. Today, he is back, liberated and grateful. Illness has transformed his vision of things: "I see everything as a bonus now. [...] I am so grateful [...]."

Too strong for the 2nd division, he aims for promotion to the Eredivisie with Volendam: "Everyone wants to go up. To be champions, even. [...] If we don’t do it, it will be a collective failure." A departure is not excluded, but he first wishes to finish the season in style. "[...] Finishing here with a promotion, and preferably a championship title, would be the pinnacle."

Bilal Ould-Chikh has drawn a valuable lesson from this ordeal: to live in the present moment. "I don’t look too far ahead anymore. It’s useless. [...] I live day by day and I enjoy every moment."