Дэлхийн аварга шалгаруулах тэмцээний финалд бэлтгэсэн нь

On the day of a World Cup final, it’s a bit of a myth that everyone calls you.

It was not like that in 2014, when we woke up in Brazil, ready to face Argentina.

The people close to you have already been in contact throughout the tournament, so nobody needs to write or say anything special. My mum always used to text me before every game. She did that day, before we played Argentina, but she would do the same before Bundesliga matches, too, and had done it all the way through my career.

But none of my friends wrote: “Hey, it’s the World Cup final today.” Nobody does that. You fall back on your routine — that’s what gives you certainty. After 112 caps for Germany and all those Champions League games, I didn’t want to change anything for my 113th game.

The big thing about days like that is how much they drag. All you want to be doing, all day, is playing football. Honestly, it’s been 12 years now, and I couldn’t even actually tell you in much detail what happened that day.

I have no idea what time I got up, but the rhythm was always the same: we had breakfast, we moved about a bit, then lunch, three hours before the match.

It was clear who would be playing. There was no anxious wait for that, because the XI who started the semi-final against Brazil were going to start in the final as well. When you have a settled side, you don’t want to start experimenting in a final. Officially, we found out the team before we got on the coach and set off for the stadium, but there was no surprise.

I remember the bus journey to the Maracana. Again, you’re impatient in those moments. You just wanted to get there, get out on the pitch and warm up. I keep saying it, but it’s true: you want the comfort of your routine. But I was really looking forward to it. I don’t mean this arrogantly, but I remember thinking: I really believe we’re going to be world champions.

Yes, I remember looking out the windows, seeing the people and the atmosphere, but we were relaxed. Focused, but calm. You have to remember who we had in that team. Manuel Neuer, Jerome Boateng, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Miroslav Klose, Thomas Muller and Mesut Ozil. These players had played in big games for Germany before, or at the absolute highest level for their clubs.

It was important. Because it meant that we all trusted our own preparation. If you have won the Champions League, for example, then you don’t worry about whether you should be doing anything different. Should you be trying to sleep? Should you be eating something new? You don’t have that.

That’s true in the dressing room, too. I know it’s a cliche, but at that World Cup, every game from the last-16 was a final. For me, that was really the case. Privately, I had decided that I would retire from the national team in 2014, and I had made the decision the year before. Nobody knew at the time, not even the coach Joachim Low, but each time I played a knockout game at that tournament, it could have been my last time. Of course, I thought about that, but everything still needed to be the same.

People won’t believe me, but the dressing room at the Maracana was like that too. One of the players on the bench was shouting about this being our moment and needing to take this opportunity to become world champions, but there was nothing unique about those minutes. In sports films, you always need that special speech with the music. But when it really happens to you, that’s not true.

You want to keep everything that has taken you to that point in time.

The only difference was out on the pitch during the warm-up, when it became clear that Sami Khedira would not be able to play. He had been carrying an injury, and he had gone as far as he could. When that happened, Jogi Low, Bastian and I gathered together. Thomas (Muller) came over too. They asked whether I wanted to move and play No 6 in place of Sami. And I said straight away: no, we shouldn’t change too much, only a like-for-like change — and that’s how Christoph Kramer came in from the start.

There was a thought about whether someone else should start, someone more attacking, such as Mario Gotze or Andre Schurrle. But for me, it was clear: better to keep it one-for-one and bring in another holding midfielder.

For me, that was important, and it made a difference. If I had suddenly had to reorganise half an hour before the game and was no longer playing my usual position — right-back, as I had in the quarter-final and semi-final — but moved into the middle instead, then that wouldn’t have helped the team or me.

What’s important to understand is that even a game like that feels normal once it kicks off. You’re not conscious the whole time that a trophy’s at stake. There were phases — near the end, for instance, or after Mario scored — when it became clear exactly how much was on the line, but fundamentally it’s like any other game: you want to win your duels, help the team, keep a clean sheet — everything you’d do anyway. There’s no inner voice constantly shouting that this is a World Cup final.

People on the outside always assume that a final should be special. When they ask you about it, that’s what they want to hear. But I’d actually say it would be a bad sign if something unusual did happen, because you’d be throwing out all the processes that have helped build your team and put you in that position in the first place.

What does it feel like to win the World Cup — to actually hold the trophy?

Doing that for your country is something very few people ever get to do; it’s a moment you can barely describe.

When I got that chance, when it was actually handed to me, I didn’t think about how many people were watching or what the occasion meant. It wasn’t really like that. Not for me.

As I was lifting it, I thought about everything that I had put into getting there. All the way back to when I joined Bayern Munich, when I was just a boy, and how each year we would have to win our place back in the academy for the season after.

Lahm thought back on his career when he took the trophy from Brazil President Dilma Rousseff (Clive Rose/Getty Images)

I don’t remember ever thinking about winning the World Cup back then. Why would I? It was too big a dream. I just wanted to make it as a footballer. Then I wanted to play for Bayern, then for my country.

One day, you find yourself standing there, and someone is handing you the World Cup.

That 2014 team had suffered together. We had won a lot of matches, but we had lost a lot of important ones too, and so my mind was full of all these memories from the years we had spent together. When we lost to Italy in Dortmund in 2006. To Spain in Vienna in 2008 and in South Africa in 2010. And then, when we lost to Italy in 2012 in the European Championship.

Those were tough, tough times that could have broken teams. With each tournament, we had been under more pressure. Were we the generation that couldn’t win?

But then, at last, you’re together with all those same team-mates — friends, really — and in those seconds, you think: finally, finally it’s ours.

You are a world champion.