It's 23 February 2011 at a sold-out San Siro in Milan. Champions League round of 16, FC Bayern versus Inter Milan, a repeat of the previous year's final. Samuel Eto’o outruns Anatolij Tymoschtschuk on the left wing, has the ball close to his feet and two free teammates in his vision. It looks like a certain goal. Or does it? No, suddenly Philipp Lahm slides between Eto'o's legs in the penalty area and pokes the ball out of play. No goal, no penalty, just a corner. And Eto'o? He high-fives Lahm and hugs him, full of admiration for this incredible, high-risk sliding tackle. There's probably no greater compliment for a defender.
At this point in time, February 2011, Lahm has only been captain at Bayern for a month after his predecessor Mark van Bommel left the club during the winter break. Lahm is also the relatively new (nine months) captain of the national team, succeeding Michael Ballack.
His injury before the World Cup in South Africa led to a long-lasting change in the style of the national team. Head coach Jogi Löw announced a revolution in defending before the tournament: "Our defenders must stay on their feet." It's the end of the time-honoured sliding tackle as we know it, which has been practised since the invention of football. "I hate stupid fouls," added Löw, whose reasoning was simply that players who slide can foul and thus put their team at risk through yellow and red cards and set pieces.
New function for the sliding tackle
As the new captain for club and country, Lahm interpreted his role very differently to the alpha leaders before him. And he also transformed the function of the sliding tackle – and made his interpretation of tackling his signature move in the following years.
The sliding tackle is actually an old-fashioned method and has a number of disadvantages. A defender who dives in can no longer run and defend in a collective. He's putting all his eggs into one basket. The sliding tackle is a big risk: if it goes wrong, in the worst case it can result in a penalty and red card. If it succeeds, the defender has prevented a clear chance or goal, but he's still not in control of the ball.
Lahm, who was blessed with extraordinary reading of the game, must have been aware of all this. He once said: "Because I'm not particularly tall, I have to arrange my game in a way that I compensate for this with quick thinking." Thanks to his quick perception and outstanding vision, he added decisive elements to the original version of the sliding tackle: winning the ball and initiating play at the same time.
In the Champions League group match against Manchester City in the 2013/14 campaign, Jesús Navas starts off on a sprint in his own half. Navas is fast, but Lahm has the advantage. He scans, senses, waits for the perfect moment. Then, bang, Lahm throws himself in the way on the halfway line. The right foot outstretched, towards the ball, he doesn't strike the ball with the tip or soul of his foot, but grabs it with his heel and bends his leg at lightning speed. He stands up before the Spaniard can turn around, and immediately plays the ball to David Alaba. The counter-attack is on.
This special game-opening sliding tackle was no accident. Lahm did it constantly, be it for the national team or Bayern. Once even twice in one match, against the same player. You can still feel sorry for Ivan Rakitić today.
When a goal is scored, you almost always remember the player who scored it. Sometimes you might remember who provided the assist. Rarely, or in fact never, do you think of the player who opened the move. In the national team and at Bayern, that was often Philipp Lahm. Players like Barcelona's Dani Alves may have reinterpreted the full-back position as if they were backup strikers, but Lahm reinterpreted this role as if he was a backup playmaker. It's no coincidence that Pep Guardiola later moved him into midfield. As captain, Lahm led Bayern and Germany to the greatest successes and lifted the Champions League, Bundesliga, DFB Cup and World Cup trophies in the air.
Perhaps Lahm still had the words of youth coach Hermann Gerland in his ear when he went in for sliding tackles. The "Tiger" can claim at least a small share of responsibility for the invention of the surgical sliding tackle. He once said that he had an almost perfect footballer in youngster Lahm: "My wife once asked me if I wasn't making a mistake. I told her: stop it, if he doesn't turn out to be a super player, I'll give up my license and become a volleyball or water polo coach. I've never been so sure." There was only one thing, said Gerland, that he was able to teach Lahm: "I once said to him after a game: 'Philipp, when you go down for a slide tackle, you have to come away with the ball'."
The eager-to-learn Lahm followed this demand and perfected it into a flawless defensive art. Few still master this move as brilliantly as he did. But some do.
One last Champions League flashback. The group stage in autumn 2018, Bayern versus Ajax. Serge Gnabry runs towards the penalty area down the left side, appears to be through and about to send the ball into the middle, until suddenly, from behind, a long leg snatches the ball away from him. Gnabry runs into nothing and Ajax counter, since the defender immediately released the ball forward out of the sliding tackle. The player who thwarted Gnabry was Matthijs de Ligt, the man who defends for us now – sometimes, if required, with a Philipp Lahm-esque sliding tackle.
Philipp Lahm was part of the legendary 'Generation Wembley' - watch the six-part documentary with FC Bayern TV PLUS now:
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