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
Oliver Kahn ZDF sports team as an analyst for the German national team's games. In 2009, he was part of the jury of a China Central Television reality show, which aimed to find China's best young goalkeeper. As of 2011, he started negotiations with television channel Sat.1 to introduce the same format to German television under the name "Never give up – The Kahn Principle", in which the winner would receive a contract to play for a Bundesliga club. Kahn was born in Karlsruhe. He is partly of Latvian descent; his father Rolf was born in Liepāja in 1943, where he remains