A weight seems to have been lifted from the shoulders of world champion Philipp Lahm after his surprising retirement from the German national team. In a guest column for weekly newspaper Die Zeit, the 30-year-old explained that the "extreme experiences I’ve had within the past year" made him aware "that I don’t want to get carried away by competitive sport. My life is my own. If I want to stay happy, including outside my football career, then I have to determine the course of my own life, and that means making decisions before they catch up with me." Lahm adds that he is "proud of this decision. I can only ever devote myself completely to a task; a bit of Philipp just isn’t possible."
The Bayern Munich and German captain, who brought his international career to a close after 113 internationals and Die Mannschaft’s World Cup triumph in Brazil, believes the time has come to "bring new structures to both my life and the national team. The responsibility now rests with the next generation. Most of these lads are eight or nine years younger than me and they have to find a leader of their own, someone they respect and with whose support they can continue to develop," he said.
Extremely fortunate
Lahm is now keen to "concentrate solely on my role as captain at Bayern. Of course, it’s extremely fortunate that I’ve been able to retire just after we won the World Cup, but I’d have stepped down even if we’d come home without the trophy," he added.
The Munich native believes that as a professional athlete, "you can probably only manage the balancing act of performing at the highest level if you constantly remind yourself that it could all go wrong." It is for this reason that Lahm cites defeat in the 2012 Champions League final as, "looking back, probably one of the games in my career that most shaped who I am". He explained that in such a career, you find yourself depending "on good fortune – sometimes things are simply a matter of luck. At that point I slowly began to accept that failure is part of life and developed a more humble outlook on what I was doing."
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A weight seems to have been lifted from the shoulders of world champion Philipp Lahm after his surprising retirement from the German national team. In a guest column for weekly newspaper Die Zeit, the 30-year-old explained that the "extreme experiences I’ve had within the past year" made him aware "that I don’t want to get carried away by competitive sport. My life is my own. If I want to stay happy, including outside my football career, then I have to determine the course of my own life, and that means making decisions before they catch up with me." Lahm adds that he is "proud of this decision. I can only ever devote myself completely to a task; a bit of Philipp just isn’t possible."
The Bayern Munich and German captain, who brought his international career to a close after 113 internationals and Die Mannschaft’s World Cup triumph in Brazil, believes the time has come to "bring new structures to both my life and the national team. The responsibility now rests with the next generation. Most of these lads are eight or nine years younger than me and they have to find a leader of their own, someone they respect and with whose support they can continue to develop," he said.
Extremely fortunate
Lahm is now keen to "concentrate solely on my role as captain at Bayern. Of course, it’s extremely fortunate that I’ve been able to retire just after we won the World Cup, but I’d have stepped down even if we’d come home without the trophy," he added.
The Munich native believes that as a professional athlete, "you can probably only manage the balancing act of performing at the highest level if you constantly remind yourself that it could all go wrong." It is for this reason that Lahm cites defeat in the 2012 Champions League final as, "looking back, probably one of the games in my career that most shaped who I am". He explained that in such a career, you find yourself depending "on good fortune – sometimes things are simply a matter of luck. At that point I slowly began to accept that failure is part of life and developed a more humble outlook on what I was doing."
