Oliver Kahn maintained his number one spot for the 2004 UEFA European Football Championship, but Germany were once again eliminated in the group stage. Oliver Kahn gave up his captaincy to Michael Ballack after the tournament. Germany's new manager Jürgen Klinsmann, who replaced Rudi Völler, adopted the strategy of rotating the number one spot between Kahn and his longtime competitor, Jens Lehmann of Arsenal, to stimulate competition between the two. On 7 April 2006, after two years of dispute for the position Klinsmann announced Lehmann was his first-choice goalkeeper for the 2006 World Cup. Kahn decided to stay on as a backup
Tom Kahn political journals like "Dissent" and "Commentary", and some of which appeared in anthologies. Kahn's "The Economics of Equality" LID pamphlet gave an "incisive radical analysis of what it would take to end racial oppression". Before Kahn became LID director in 1964, he was involved with the Student League for Industrial Democracy, which became Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Along with other LID members Rachelle Horowitz, Michael Harrington, and Don Slaiman, Kahn attended the LID-sponsored meeting that discussed the Port Huron Statement. Kahn was listed as a student representative from Howard University and was elected to the National Executive Committee.