{"id":57302,"date":"2026-07-19T04:23:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T04:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/57302\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T04:23:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T04:23:12","slug":"philipp-lahm-what-a-world-cup-final-day-is-really-like-by-germanys-2014-captain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/57302\/","title":{"rendered":"Philipp Lahm: What a World Cup final day is really like, by Germany\u2019s 2014 captain"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the day of a World Cup final, it\u2019s a bit of a myth that everyone calls you.<\/p>\n

It was not like that in 2014, when we woke up in Brazil, ready to face Argentina.<\/p>\n

The people close to you have already been in contact throughout the tournament, so nobody needs to write or say anything special. My mum always used to text me before every game. She did that day, before we played Argentina, but she would do the same before Bundesliga matches, too, and had done it all the way through my career.<\/p>\n

But none of my friends wrote: \u201cHey, it\u2019s the World Cup final today.\u201d Nobody does that. You fall back on your routine \u2014 that\u2019s what gives you certainty. After 112 caps for Germany and all those Champions League games, I didn\u2019t want to change anything for my 113th game.<\/p>\n

The big thing about days like that is how much they drag. All you want to be doing, all day, is playing football. Honestly, it\u2019s been 12 years now, and I couldn\u2019t even actually tell you in much detail what happened that day.<\/p>\n

I have no idea what time I got up, but the rhythm was always the same: we had breakfast, we moved about a bit, then lunch, three hours before the match.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Lahm passing the ball during the final (Fabrice Coffrini \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

It was clear who would be playing. There was no anxious wait for that, because the XI who started the semi-final against Brazil were going to start in the final as well. When you have a settled side, you don\u2019t want to start experimenting in a final. Officially, we found out the team before we got on the coach and set off for the stadium, but there was no surprise.<\/p>\n

I remember the bus journey to the Maracana. Again, you\u2019re impatient in those moments. You just wanted to get there, get out on the pitch and warm up. I keep saying it, but it\u2019s true: you want the comfort of your routine. But I was really looking forward to it. I don\u2019t mean this arrogantly, but I remember thinking: I really believe we\u2019re going to be world champions.<\/p>\n

Yes, I remember looking out the windows, seeing the people and the atmosphere, but we were relaxed. Focused, but calm. You have to remember who we had in that team. Manuel Neuer, Jerome Boateng, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Miroslav Klose, Thomas Muller and Mesut Ozil<\/a>. These players had played in big games for Germany before, or at the absolute highest level for their clubs.<\/p>\n

It was important. Because it meant that we all trusted our own preparation. If you have won the Champions League, for example, then you don\u2019t worry about whether you should be doing anything different. Should you be trying to sleep? Should you be eating something new? You don\u2019t have that.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s true in the dressing room, too. I know it\u2019s a cliche, but at that World Cup, every game from the last-16 was a final. For me, that was really the case. Privately, I had decided that I would retire from the national team in 2014, and I had made the decision the year before. Nobody knew at the time, not even the coach Joachim Low, but each time I played a knockout game at that tournament, it could have been my last time. Of course, I thought about that, but everything still needed to be the same.<\/p>\n

People won\u2019t believe me, but the dressing room at the Maracana was like that too. One of the players on the bench was shouting about this being our moment and needing to take this opportunity to become world champions, but there was nothing unique about those minutes. In sports films, you always need that special speech with the music. But when it really happens to you, that\u2019s not true.<\/p>\n

You want to keep everything that has taken you to that point in time.<\/p>\n

One more game for Lionel Messi as beaming, bouncing Argentina rises up for its football god<\/p>\n

James Horncastle and Madison Eades<\/p>\n

The only difference was out on the pitch during the warm-up, when it became clear that Sami Khedira would not be able to play. He had been carrying an injury, and he had gone as far as he could. When that happened, Jogi Low, Bastian and I gathered together. Thomas (Muller) came over too. They asked whether I wanted to move and play No 6 in place of Sami. And I said straight away: no, we shouldn\u2019t change too much, only a like-for-like change \u2014 and that\u2019s how Christoph Kramer came in from the start.<\/p>\n

There was a thought about whether someone else should start, someone more attacking, such as Mario Gotze or Andre Schurrle. But for me, it was clear: better to keep it one-for-one and bring in another holding midfielder.<\/p>\n

For me, that was important, and it made a difference. If I had suddenly had to reorganise half an hour before the game and was no longer playing my usual position \u2014 right-back, as I had in the quarter-final and semi-final \u2014 but moved into the middle instead, then that wouldn\u2019t have helped the team or me.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s important to understand is that even a game like that feels normal once it kicks off. You\u2019re not conscious the whole time that a trophy\u2019s at stake. There were phases \u2014 near the end, for instance, or after Mario scored<\/a> \u2014 when it became clear exactly how much was on the line, but fundamentally it\u2019s like any other game: you want to win your duels, help the team, keep a clean sheet \u2014 everything you\u2019d do anyway. There\u2019s no inner voice constantly shouting that this is a World Cup final.<\/p>\n

People on the outside always assume that a final should be special. When they ask you about it, that\u2019s what they want to hear. But I\u2019d actually say it would be a bad sign if something unusual did happen, because you\u2019d be throwing out all the processes that have helped build your team and put you in that position in the first place.<\/p>\n

What does it feel like to win the World Cup \u2014 to actually hold the trophy?<\/p>\n

Doing that for your country is something very few people ever get to do; it\u2019s a moment you can barely describe.<\/p>\n

When I got that chance, when it was actually handed to me, I didn\u2019t think about how many people were watching or what the occasion meant. It wasn\u2019t really like that. Not for me.<\/p>\n

As I was lifting it, I thought about everything that I had put into getting there. All the way back to when I joined Bayern Munich, when I was just a boy, and how each year we would have to win our place back in the academy for the season after.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Lahm thought back on his career when he took the trophy from Brazil President Dilma Rousseff (Clive Rose\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t remember ever thinking about winning the World Cup back then. Why would I? It was too big a dream. I just wanted to make it as a footballer. Then I wanted to play for Bayern, then for my country.<\/p>\n

One day, you find yourself standing there, and someone is handing you the World Cup.<\/p>\n

That 2014 team had suffered together. We had won a lot of matches, but we had lost a lot of important ones too, and so my mind was full of all these memories from the years we had spent together. When we lost to Italy in Dortmund in 2006. To Spain in Vienna in 2008 and in South Africa in 2010. And then, when we lost to Italy in 2012 in the European Championship.<\/p>\n

Those were tough, tough times that could have broken teams. With each tournament, we had been under more pressure. Were we the generation that couldn\u2019t win?<\/p>\n

But then, at last, you\u2019re together with all those same team-mates \u2014 friends, really \u2014 and in those seconds, you think: finally, finally it\u2019s ours.<\/p>\n

You are a world champion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On the day of a World Cup final, it\u2019s a bit of a myth that everyone calls you.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57303,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[303,144,846,172,5,174,156],"class_list":["post-57302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-germany","tag-argentina","tag-bayern-munich","tag-bundesliga","tag-fifa-mens-world-cup","tag-germany","tag-premier-league","tag-spain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}