Philipp Lahm: a Bayern and Germany legend

On 13 November 2002, Bayern welcomed RC Lens to an all but deserted Olympiastadion for Matchday 6 of the UEFA Champions League group stage. It had been a disastrous campaign for the 2001 winners. Having lost twice to both Deportivo La Coruna and eventual champions AC Milan, they only had pride to play for against the French side – with no chance of reaching the second group stage or even the UEFA Cup.

In the 87th minute, Markus Feulner must have thought he had at least secured one victory for Ottmar Hitzfeld's side, as he made it 3-2 to Bayern. Nothing doing. Jocelyn Blanchard headed in a last-minute equaliser for Lens, and Bayern ended an inglorious campaign with just two points from six matches. Hitzfeld's final decision of the night was to bring off Feulner, and replace him with a young right-back from Bayern's academy who had just celebrated his 19th birthday. Philipp Lahm.

Lahm played barely a minute of the game before the referee blew the final whistle, and he wouldn't make another appearance for Bayern for three years. And yet it was right there, on that entirely forgettable night against Lens, that his unforgettable story with Bayern began.

Watch: See all of Lahm's Bundesliga goals for Bayern

By the time he retired some 15 years later, the diminutive right-back – standing just 1.70 metres tall – had become a giant of German football. An inspirational leader and captain – arguably one of the most intelligent players to grace the European game – he won it all: Bundesliga, DFB Cup, Champions League, FIFA World Cup. Following that first, fleeting appearance, he went on to clock up over 500 games with his boyhood club.

Admittedly the transformation didn't happen overnight. Lahm spent the rest of the 2002/03 season playing for Bayern’s reserves, before being loaned out to VfB Stuttgart to cut his teeth in the Bundesliga. He played under Felix Magath, who famously converted him into a left-back, before joining up with his former coach at Bayern in the summer of 2005.

A cruciate ligament injury kept him out for several months at the start of 2005/06, but Lahm became a regular starter in the second half of that season. The 22-year-old even got his first taste of silverware as Bayern claimed a Bundesliga and DFB Cup double, and he was rewarded with a place in Jürgen Klinsmann's Germany squad for the 2006 FIFA World Cup on home soil.

Little did Lahm know that he would soon be making headlines after kicking off the tournament in spectacular fashion. Just six minutes into Germany's Group A opener with Costa Rica – at the all-new Allianz Arena, fittingly enough – he picked up the ball on the left, cut inside, and unleashed a magnificent right-footed strike into the far top corner. It was some way for the Bayern defender to announce himself on the world stage. "It was probably the goal of my lifetime," he grinned.

Lahm went on to play every minute of Germany's World Cup campaign – winning Man of the Match plaudits for his performance against Poland – as the hosts eventually finished in third place. Germany had exceeded expectations – and there was no question that their young full-back had made a serious impact.

From the 2006/07 season onwards, Lahm became Bayern's first-choice left-back, although Louis van Gaal would restore him to his favoured position on the right in 2009/10. After further league and cup doubles in 2008 and 2010, the Bavarians began to return to the forefront of the European scene. They reached the final of the Champions League in 2010, losing out to Inter Milan.

In the absence of the injured Michael Ballack, the increasingly influential Lahm was named Germany's captain at the 2010 World Cup. "Philipp has natural authority, takes on responsibility, and communicates well. He is a natural leader," declared coach Joachim Löw. Lahm was the only member of the squad to play every minute as Die Mannschaft once again finished the tournament in third place.

Lahm also became club captain at Bayern midway through the 2010/11 season as the Bavarians set about conquering Europe once again. The stage was perfectly set in the 2012 Champions League final as the Bavarians took on Chelsea FC at their Allianz Arena. Victory slipped agonisingly through their grasp once again, however, when the Blues triumphed in a penalty shoot-out.

"After a game like that, a team can either fall apart completely or grow closer together," Lahm said. "We chose the latter."

Indeed they did. A year later, Lahm finally got his hands on the Champions League trophy as Bayern edged Borussia Dortmund in the all-Bundesliga final at Wembley, part of a remarkable treble under Jupp Heynckes. "The pressure was immense," Lahm admitted after the game. "It's an incredible feeling  – a huge relief."

Having captained Bayern to that long-awaited Champions League victory, Lahm now boasted one of the most impressive medal collections in German football. But he had his eyes on a bigger prize. Tthe Brazilian summer of 2014 would definitively cement his reputation as one of the greatest players not just of his generation, but in the history of German football.

When Mario Götze fired in his 113th-minute winner for Germany in the World Cup final against Argentina, it was the culmination of a 10-year journey for Lahm and the national side. It began with a woeful group-stage elimination at UEFA Euro 2004, and ended with captain Lahm lifting his nation's fourth World Cup at the Maracana Stadium.

That was his 113th and final appearance for Germany, but hanging up his international boots did nothing to curb Lahm's appetite for success. Under Pep Guardiola he racked up three more league titles as Bayern became the first team to win the Bundesliga four times in a row. Lahm also displayed his tactical and positional versatility, as he was regularly deployed in midfield by Guardiola. The Spanish tactician once described him as the "most intelligent footballer" he had ever coached.

"Bayern have had legends such as Franz Beckenbauer, Gerd Müller, Uli Hoeneß and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge. For me, Philipp Lahm is at the same level as those legends," Guardiola once told SportBild. "He is the perfect captain for Bayern, and helped me a lot both on and off the pitch."

A fond farewell

In the Champions League alone, Lahm played a staggering 112 times, and in February 2017 he made his milestone 500th appearance for Bayern – the club he had joined as an 11-year-old. At the end of that season, the veteran lifted the Meisterschale for an eighth and final time before hanging up his boots.

After his retirement as a player, Lahm became an ambassador for Germany’s successful bid to host Euro 2024. The 2017 German Footballer of the year is now working as the tournament director for that competition, but there is no doubt that he has already had an immense impact on both Bayern and football in the country as a whole.

Back on that cheerless November night against Lens, who could have imagined that the young man waiting nervously to make his first senior appearance would go on to take both his club and country back to the summit of the game?