Lahm injury poses Bayern challenge

Excellence need not be flashy. One good mark of Philipp Lahm's superlative talent is how little attention he usually attracts on the pitch. When he plays at left or right fullback, opponents tend to favor the other side of the pitch. And as a defensive midfielder, Lahm's nearly ninety percent pass completion rate keeps him from playing a negative role in the highlight reels.

Lahm is a bit like a bassist in a band. You don't always notice that he's there, but you'd probably miss him if he were gone. The German national team, in any case, hasn't looked the same without him.

The coming weeks will tell how much Bayern Munich do indeed miss their captain, after it was revealed on Tuesday that Lahm will be out at least three months with a fractured ankle. The diminutive defender, who's proved remarkably robust over eleven years in the Bundesliga, surprised a lot of people when he announced his retirement from the German national team this summer at the age of 30. Now it almost seems as though Lahm suspected he was in danger of a serious injury.

So how big of a hole will Lahm leave behind, and who's capable of plugging it?

A long list gets even longer

Lahm's absence will likely hurt Bayern doubly because the raft of injuries Munich has already suffered in defensive midfield and at the fullback position. Coach Pep Guardiola has already had to learn to do without Javi Martinez, Thiago Alcantara, Bastian Schweinsteiger and David Alaba this season. Guardiola says that Lahm is the "most intelligent" player he's ever worked with - high praise indeed given the Catalan coach's storied past.

Nonetheless, none of the Bundesliga competition is likely to stay awake at night weeping for the predicaments of poor Pep. Bayern have by far and away the deepest squad in the league, with as many as three players capable of filling a given position without a serious drop in quality.

Lahm's injury could open the door for younger and thus far marginalized players. 19-year-old Pierre-Emile Höjbjerg might want to reconsider his public calls for a loan in order to get more playing time. And Sebastian Rode could also be spending more minutes on grass and less on plastic.

But it's more likely that Guardiola will expect more from two players he himself brought in this summer. Juan Bernat and Mehdi Benatia are two athletes who like Lahm can shift between the back four and defensive midfield.

None of the above is capable of taking over Lahm's place as a team leader. That task will fall to players like Thomas Müller and perhaps Schweinsteiger, who looks as though he's finally ready to return from the injury he picked up in an exhibition match this summer.

That notwithstanding, however, Lahm's injury is a harbinger of a change of the guard that will be coming to Munich sooner or later.

Wanted: a new generation

Bayern's absolute dominance of the Bundesliga, and their status as perhaps the second leading candidate after Real Madrid for the Champions League, cannot conceal the fact that some of this squad's key players are approaching the twilight of their careers.

Lahm is 31, as is winger Franck Ribery. Arjen Robben is 30 and has a history of injuries - the same being true of Schweinsteiger. And metronome Xabi Alonso, despite revitalizing his career this season with his move to Munich, will turn 33 next week.

In the mid-term, Bayern will be staking its fortunes on a new generation of players in their early to mid-twenties: Müller, Alaba, Robert Lewandowski, Mario Götze and, if Munich's bosses get their way on the transfer market, perhaps Marco Reus.

But with the exception of Müller and maybe Alaba, none of those players has been with Bayern long enough to build up a sense of affiliation with the club. For Lahm, a Munich native, there's never any question of which club was closest to his heart.

And that's another reason why Lahm's absence will pose a challenge in both the short and the long term.