Bayern Munich Captains: The Bavarians' 5 Most Influential Leaders
Bayern Munich legend Bastian Schweinsteiger brought the curtain down on a glittering 12-year Germany career on Wednesday, leading the team out for one final time—and his 121st cap—in a 2-0 victory over Finland in Monchengladbach.
The Manchester United midfielder's successor was appointed the next day, with coach Joachim Low giving Bayern custodian Manuel Neuer the captain's armband.
The most successful club in German football history, Bayern have contributed an abundance of leaders to the national team.
Of the seven major honours Germany have won—four FIFA World Cups, three UEFA European Championships—all but two triumphs were captained by Bayern players past or present.
Now seems as good a time as any, then, to look back on the five greatest players to have led the Reds out at the Allianz Arena and the Olympiastadion before that.
5. Bastian Schweinsteiger
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Wednesday was an understandably emotional evening for Schweini, who, at 32, concluded a glittering 12-year career with Die Nationalmannschaft.
Schweinsteiger was a key part of the Germany team that ended an 18-year wait for a major trophy by lifting the World Cup in Brazil in 2014, and Low was effusive in his praise of the midfielder, who scored his 24th and final international goal against Ukraine at UEFA Euro 2016 in France this summer.
"I was very emotional at the time," Deutsche Welle quoted the head coach as saying. "The years went through my head when he came off. I don't think we would have had the success we've had without him."
Bayern can justifiably say the same. Schweinsteiger spent 13 seasons at the Allianz Arena, playing 500 matches and winning eight Bundesliga titles and a UEFA Champions League before last summer's switch to Manchester United.
Having joined Bayern a month before his 14th birthday, Schweinsteiger first captained the side 10 years later, in April 2008, with veteran pair Oliver Kahn and Lucio missing for the record champions' 4-1 win over VfB Stuttgart.
Despite leading Germany for two years, Schweinsteiger's influence at Bayern emanated predominantly from his position in the dressing room. As understudy to first Mark van Bommel and then Philipp Lahm, Schweinsteiger nonetheless intermittently wore the armband during no fewer than five successful Bundesliga campaigns.
4. Lothar Matthaus
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When Argentina legend Diego Maradona—for many the best player to have graced the sport—describes you in his 2006 book, Yo Soy El Diego, as "the best rival I've ever had," it is fair to say you have left an indelible mark on the game.
Matthaus retired in 2000 as one of the greatest captains Bayern, Germany and the world had ever seen. A box-to-box midfielder-cum-sweeper, the now-55-year-old captained the West Germany team to World Cup glory at Italia '90.
The most-capped German of all time, with 150 international appearances, Matthaus remains to only player from his country to have won the FIFA World Player of the Year award, which he secured in 1991.
Matthaus was on the books of Inter Milan when he led Germany past Maradona's Argentina in Rome in July 1990, but his time in Italy was sandwiched by two trophy-laden spells at Bayern, and he made 302 appearances in total for the Bavarians.
Matthaus captained Bayern to the Bundesliga title in the 1993-94 season and to UEFA Cup glory two years later. He won 15 trophies in a combined 12 years with the club and was part of the team that came so close to completing a double in 1999—falling at the final hurdle to Manchester United in Barcelona in the Champions League as a result of stoppage-time goals from Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
3. Oliver Kahn
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The captain when Bayern were so agonisingly edged by Manchester United at the Camp Nou in '99, Kahn can at least console himself with the fact he captained the Bavarians to some 10 trophies, which included four Bundesliga triumphs and four DFB-Pokals.
So nearly a Word Cup winner with Germany in 2002, Kahn parried Rivaldo's shot in the final in Yokohama, Japan, allowing Ronaldo to steal in and score the first of two goals as Brazil sealed their fifth title.
"It was my only mistake in the finals," lamented Kahn after the game, according to the Guardian. "It was 10 times worse than any mistake I've ever made. There's no way I can make myself feel any better or make my mistake go away."
Kahn rarely had to settle for second-best, though. He showed incredible character to pick opposite number Santiago Canizares off the ground when Bayern beat Valencia on penalties in the Champions League final in 2001, and he succeeded Stefan Effenberg as captain the following year.
One of the most successful Bayern players in history, Kahn won eight German league titles in total, as well as 12 domestic cups before retiring in 2008 as the only goalkeeper to have won four consecutive UEFA Best European Goalkeeper awards, as well as the first—and hitherto only—'keeper to win the Golden Ball at a World Cup.
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2. Philipp Lahm
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The current Bayern club captain, Lahm also skippered Germany to their World Cup triumph in Brazil in 2014—which included a barely fathomable 7-1 destruction of the hosts in the semi-finals.
Tactically disciplined yet eminently versatile, former Bayern coach Pep Guardiola described Lahm as "perhaps the most intelligent player I have ever trained in my career."
High praise indeed, but it is difficult to describe it as anything but merited on perusing Lahm's trophy cabinet. The 32-year-old captained Bayern as they became the first German club to win the treble of Bundesliga, DFB-Pokal and Champions League in 2013.
The defender, who moonlights in midfield, has won 22 major trophies with Bayern since breaking into the first team in 2002. The most recent 13 of those were as captain, having succeeded Van Bommel in 2011.
Lahm shies away from the limelight off the pitch—Andreas Ottl was the only fellow professional footballer at this wedding in in 2010, per Der Spiegel—but on the field he is a colossus.
"I have said many times that I think the guy must have played football in the womb," Bayern youth coach Hermann Gerland told Suddeutsche Zeitung in 2010. "That's really the only explanation I have. He has such a sensational feeling for the game."
Having led his country to their first major honour since Euro '96, for most of Germany, that feeling is mutual.
1. Franz Beckenbauer
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Having already cycled through the likes of Matthaus and Lahm, there could only justifiably be one man left to top this list. Steffen Effenberg and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge deserve honourable mentions, but their successes outlined earlier would have been unimaginable if not for the formative influence of Der Kaiser, Franz Beckenbauer.
An 1860 Munich fan growing up, Beckenbauer joined Bayern in 1959 and went on to redefine how a defender might interpret his role. A sweeper par extraordinaire, Beckenbauer could dictate games from deep and even chipped in with 64 goals for Bayern, as well as 14 for West Germany.
Playing in a generation that boasted the celestial talents of Pele and Johan Cruyff, it speaks to Beckenbauer's talent that despite playing much of the game in the defensive third, he is held in a similar regard.
Beckenbauer led Germany to the European Championship in Belgium in 1972 and World Cup success on home turf two years later. He also dominated European club football in the '70s, winning the European Cup with Bayern every year from 1974 to 1976. He remains the only man in history to have captained his side to three consecutive European Cups.
Der Kaiser was one of the few gifted players able to parlay his playing experience into a successful coaching career, and he is one of only two men—alongside Brazil's Mario Zagallo—to have won the World Cup both as player and coach, after guiding the Germany team that had Matthaus as captain to victory at Italia '90.
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