Lahm, who earned 113 caps during his career, was my favorite on Die Mannschaft. For one thing, he's short, only about an inch taller than I am. For another, his playing style is similar to that of my son Scott: fast, quick play, winning the ball and starting the attack out of the back. "He may have been one of the smallest players physically, but on the pitch Lahm was always one of the biggest forces," wrote commentator Andreas Sten-Ziemons.
The World Cup victory in Brazil made Lahm the fourth German captain after Fritz Walter (1954), Franz Beckenbauer (1974) and Lothar Matthäus (1990) to hoist the World Cup, and the first to have lifted it for a unified Germany.
The German broadcaster, Deutsche Welle (literally, "German Waves) ran this story of the retirement, which it said caught the country by surprise. (The link is to the English version.) And the Sten-Ziemons piece, also on Deutsche Welle, is here.
The German Soccer Federation (Deutscher Fussball Bund or DFB) expressed its appreciation for Lahm on its website under the heading, "Wir Sagen: Danke Philipp." (We say, thank you, Philipp.")
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