FourFourTwo's best team ever: Our ultimate XI of the last 30 years
Presenting the best team ever - of FourFourTwo's lifetime, at least: an XI who have defined the past 30 years of football
RB: Philipp Lahm
Intelligence personified, Philipp Lahm never had blistering pace, wasn’t the most physical and stood at just 5ft 7in tall. It’s a good job, then, that he had a razor-sharp brain coupled with an exceptional technical ability that saw him effortlessly move from left-back to right-back - and even to central midfield - over the course of his glittering career.
In his 12 years as an established first-team Bayern Munich player, Lahm lifted eight Bundesliga titles, six DFB-Pokal trophies and added in a Champions League crown as part of a treble for good measure. The captain for those 2013 triumphs, Lahm raised those three prizes above his head just a year before he was standing with the World Cup trophy at the Maracana Stadium with the armband adorned on his left bicep.
Ever-dependable, Lahm rarely missed a game, too. Between 2006/07 and 2016/17, the German made more than 40 appearances for Bayern Munich in all but two campaigns, and he managed 113 international games, achieved over just a 10-year period.
It’s Lahm’s reinvention of the full-back position where he’s had the most influence, however. The original ‘inverted full-back’, Pep Guardiola often moved the diminutive defender into central midfield to create an overload when in possession - before eventually just starting him in the middle anyway, such was his creative and tactical capabilities.
Upon reflection, retiring at 34 seems a tad too early for a player that never needed to rely on their physicality. But after winning everything there is to win, who are we to say otherwise?
Ryan Dabbs
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Mark White is the Digital Content Editor at FourFourTwo. During his time on the brand, Mark has written three cover features on Mikel Arteta, Martin Odegaard and the Invincibles, and has written pieces on subjects ranging from Sir Bobby Robson’s time at Barcelona to the career of Robinho. An encyclopedia of football trivia and collector of shirts, he first joined the team back in 2020 as a staff writer.
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