Germany and FC Bayern Munich skipper Philipp Lahm will publish his autobiography on Monday. The book called “Der feine Unterschied – Wie man heute Spitzenfussballer wird” (“The fine difference – How to become a top footballer”) reveals many interesting inside information from his successful career and it also excoriates a few of his former coaches with Jürgen Klinsmann being one of the main culprits.

Lahm is a world-class footballer with a high reputation amongst football fans, media and fellow footballers. The 27-year old defender joined Bayern Munich in 1995 as a 12-year-old and has been with the club since then apart from a two-year loan at VfB Stuttgart.

Lahm made available excerpts to German newspaper BILD before the official launch next week. In the book Lahm slammed former Germany boss Jürgen Klinsmann for his style of management and lack of tactics during his brief tenure in charge of the Bavarian giants.

“Klinsmann was the shining hero of the 2006 World Cup when Bayern took him on as setting the tone for the future, proof that Bayern did not hesitate when it came to improving their structures,” Lahm wrote.

“But the Klinsmann experiment failed. We practically only practised fitness under Klinsmann, there was very little technical instruction and the players themselves discussed the way they would play a game before the match,” he continued.

“After six or eight weeks, all the players already knew that it wasn’t going to work with Klinsmann. The remainder of that campaign was nothing but limiting the damage,” the 27-year old star stated.

Lahm singles out other coaches for criticism, including Felix Magath, who coached Bayern for three years beginning in 2004 and Louis van Gaal, who led the Bavarians between 2009 and April of this year.

“Felix Magath works with pressure. Under Magath the players never knew where they stood. At first, that prompted the players to give their best because they wanted to play, but after a while the players knew where they stood and Magath no longer received the same effect. That was the case in the 2006/07 season, when we had a poor campaign. Too many players felt like they were put in a backwater. The coach didn’t reach the desired goals with his methods,” Lahm continued in the next chapter of his autobiography.

Dutch coach Louis van Gaal made Philipp Lahm the new captain at Bayern, when he took over in 2009 and led the German giants to the German double and the UEFA Champions League final in his very first season.

“Louis van Gaal can be credited for implementing a playing philosophy, which made us very successful in the first season. But he refused to acknowledge the deficits of his philosophy in the second season and he refused to eliminate them. Our game was completely geared towards the offensive and this saw us concede a lot of goal. That made things easy for the opponent to create chances. I don’t know how many goals we conceded because of this philosophy,” Lahm judged on the van Gaal era.

Germany’s BILD newspaper will publish a few more explosive excerpts from Lahm’s autobiography in the coming days and football fans can expect a lot more interesting views from the Germany captain.

Football fans interested to read the complete book may order it online via Amazon. An English version of the autobiography won’t be available at the moment, but may be published later on.

You link to order Philipp Lahm’s “Der feine Unterschied – Wie man heute Spitzenfussballer wird” (“The fine difference – How to become a top footballer”):
http://www.amazon.de/feine-Unterschied-heute-Spitzenfu%C3%9Fballer-wird/dp/3888977290/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1314120983&sr=1-3

Enjoy reading…