Quotes from Philipp Lahm

Sporting behaviour means fair behaviour. This is the player's task, not the referee's.

I have no problems with homosexuals whatsoever.

I consider it a privilege and duty to pass on the experience and knowledge I have accumulated in 20 years of experience at club and national team level with Bayern and Germany.

We should not discuss refereeing performances but support decisions to help their work.

We practically only practiced fitness under Klinsmann, there was very little technical instruction and the players themselves discussed the way they would play a game before the match.

We know South Americans are impulsive and temperamental and cannot lose.

I have climbed every step of the football ladder, from kicking a ball about in Munich's Olympic Park to becoming a junior at Bayern, signing professional terms, establishing myself in the first team and taking the captain's armband.

When I played for Stuttgart, I met Manchester United and Chelsea. With United, I immediately think of the duels with Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes and with Chelsea, it was John Terry. Those players are symbols of their clubs and the success they had at that time.

Many great teams have players who have come through the youth system or have been at the club for a long time as their captains. I'm thinking of Steven Gerrard at Liverpool, John Terry at Chelsea, Raul at Real Madrid, as well as Puyol at Barcelona and Gary Neville at Man United.

My first goal was to become a professional footballer.

I had a very interesting and exciting life as a footballer, for which I am grateful.

The key is developing your game in both directions: in the build-up, joining the attack at the right moment and also in defence. You have to win the one-on-one situations and need the required pace and technique. These are the decisive factors for a defender.

In every part of our society, rules have to be questioned and adapted.

For me it's more difficult to play against the quicker wingers, but for the team it's perhaps more difficult to face players that are good passers, because one through ball can take the whole team out of the game.

Generally I always take genuine criticism. It's part of football.

Thomas Muller is an excellent player.

At Euro 2004 - my first as a player - Greece won the title. A team nobody thought could win it.

Looking back at my matches since 2002, there is one main criterion for me which marks a club which is successful in the long-term: big players, who have grown with their clubs, whose names are tied to the success and who have a 100 per cent identification with the team, the club and its history.

The title I most want is the 2014 World Cup.

Personal vanity has no place in a World Cup.

We have big goals at Bayern and always want to go as far as possible in each competition and win silverware. But it is great to have won the World Cup. You are a world champion for your entire life. A lof of people talk about it and it remains very special. But it's not like I think about the World Cup each morning I wake up.

Germans have a rich history of playing well in the World Cup.

In a World Cup you always intend to compete with the best.

I have a clear goal: the greatest possible success, the World Cup trophy.