Arrogant?
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its the least he could do before taking the flight to china

there it is



an era has come to an end, an ultimate all time legend has had his last game for the club today
after 22 years in the bayern shirt lahm is retiring

517 matches for bayern

331 Bundesliga matches
118 European matches
54 DFB Cup matches
6 Supercup matches
5 League Cup matches
2 FIFA Club World Cup matches

he has never seen a red card or missed a game due to suspension while playing on such a high level (sergio ramos is like wtf mate??)

21 trophies

Eight German championship titles (2006, 2008, 2010, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017)
Six DFB Cup triumps (2006, 2008, 2010, 2013, 2014, 2016)
Three DFL Supercup trophies (2010, 2012, 2016)
FIFA Club World Cup trophy (2014)
Champions League triumph (2013)
UEFA Super Cup triumph (2013)
DFL League Cup trophy (2007)

legendary treble winner
and of course the 2014 world cup

lahm must be the most consistent player of all time, he has been functioning like a machine for all these years and i have never seen a player making so few mistakes
its a shame he never won the ballon d'or
needless to say he was a flawless captain and personality, we need other players to step up now and fill the void

thanks for everything captain!



you will be missed

Good riddance

huge fan, the guy is pure class on and off the pitch. a shame he retired so early (both for the national team and for bayern), his performances clearly indicate he could have played at least another season or two at the highest level.

i too think he's maybe a bit underrated / underappreciated overall, but that's due to the fact that he's a defender, played most of his life for the same club and thus only in one league, and he's just a calm and composed individual.
also, if you talk to real football fans, no matter which club they belong to, i haven't heard a single one who doesn't think he's worldclass - that alone speaks for itself.

farewell, philipp - and dare i say... legend?

three more guys will leave as well and deserve mentioning

xabi is retiring after three years at bayern, thanks to a great person and real gentleman
he received a lot of criticism from me (thanks to our coaches mostly), but it will not take anything away from his accomplishments here
just like lahm i think he has had a perfect career playing for liverpool, real and bayern while winning everything there is with club and country
cya around xabi

our third keeper starke is also retiring, but he stays with the club as the future goalkeeper coach in the new bayern academy
he is a great guy and i am happy he got some playtime towards the end, even saving a pen and making great saves

by the way he must be the ultimate title collector in world football, he played 8 games for 13 titles

also leaving the first team is our tiger hermann gerland, who will go from assistant coach to the new boss of the youth academy
there is no better choice, he has been so important for the young players in the club
his presence on the training pitch will be missed, who will take care of our youngsters now? i hope the club will figure that our
keep it up tiger



yeah you wont find many guys that are fully undisputed in the history of football, you just cant dislike him
he did decline quite a bit though this year (while still being on a top level lol ^^) and you could tell at the right camera angle that he is tired going after 21 year old wingers
imo he deserves a lot of credit for the decision, most guys are too desperate to grind every last bit of playtime and money in china or even india

This post was edited by ampoo on May 20 2017 01:43pm

oh don't get me wrong, i ABSOLUTELY respect his decision, class act through and through. and ofc you're right, it is a physically extremely demanding position and he's not the youngest anymore. that being said though, despite being visibly tired maybe, he never backed down from putting AT LEAST as much work in as anyone else, and on top of that making EVERY SINGLE overlapping run to get the opposing fullback out of position despite there only being a 15% chance he get's the pass from robben - which WHEN it happened, almost always ended up becoming an extremely accurate cross towards a striker, or a pin point pass towards the edge of the box, right into the back of the whole defense...

Lahm has probably been the world's second best LB of his generation (overall, during last 15 years or so), after Dani Alves.

While he has never had an outstanding form other fullbacks have had (Marcelo, Alaba, Abidal, ... even Maicon, Evra, etc) which made them the undisputed best in their roles at least at some point of their career, Lahm has always been consistent and among the best for a long, long time.

Huge respect to him for retiring before going downhill... when you're a legend in a top club it's easy to become unconsciously narcissistic and selfish, and believe you're good enough and deserve to play top level football forever, eventually becoming a burden for your club. Lahm has kept his head cool and made a brave and hard decision. Wish him well in his new life

yep, if there is a guy in the universe who will miss him the most its robben



you mean RB, but he did spend quite a bit of his career on the left

This post was edited by ampoo on May 20 2017 02:09pm

Oh, and about Xabi. Another great player. He too has been solid and consistent throughout his career, although in these last two years you could see that he just wasn't the same anymore.

He's an icon in San Sebastián, Livepool and Madrid, and has won pretty much everything on club and national level. Very professional guy and always a leader on the pitch with a great understanding of the game... I can see him becoming a successful manager (he admits that's the path he wants to take).

Thankyou for your contributions to Madrid and la Roja, you were instrumental in most of our recent titles