Retiring Lahm wants to have fun in final weeks of career

Philipp Lahm wants to have fun in the closing weeks of his playing career as the Bayern Munich captain approaches his retirement from football.

Bayern’s treble dreams have died in April, with Lahm’s men exiting the Champions League quarter-finals to Real Madrid before losing a home DFB-Pokal semi-final 3-2 against Borussia Dortmund on Wednesday.

Despite drawing their last two league matches, Bayern can become champions on Saturday with three matches to spare should RB Leipzig fail to beat Ingolstadt and Bayern win at Wolfsburg.

Lahm, who has won seven Bundesliga titles and collected a Pokal winners’ medal six times, insisted winning the league again would enable him to go out on a high by matching the eight titles won by Bayern legends Bastian Schweinsteiger, Oliver Kahn and Mehmet Scholl.

“I still have three and a half weeks left, so I’m going to try and enjoy those remaining weeks,” the 33-year-old told the Bundesliga website. “They’re my last as a professional footballer.

“I never played football for the records but simply because I wanted to be successful. Winning the title would be a lovely farewell for me. Winning the title every year is not a given.

“I want to remember football and everything it’s given me. All careers come to an end, and I don’t want my final weeks to be devoid of fun. I really thought long and hard about [retiring] and nothing has changed since.”

We had ambitious plans – you could see it after the first 15 minutes. In the end it’s a huge disappointment that we didn’t reach the final. pic.twitter.com/upUrH4xRwr

— Philipp Lahm (@philipplahm) April 27, 2017

Bayern have won just one of their last seven games in all competitions, but Carlo Ancelotti’s men have an eight-point lead from Leipzig at the top of the Bundesliga table as they seek to win the league for the fifth year in a row.