What else needs to be said about one of Germany’s most experienced players in the current squad? You’ve seen his heroics in the past two World Cups, scoring 5 goals in 2002 and winning the Golden Boot in 2006. He now has a total tally of 10 World Cup goals.
With 39 goals out of 75 appearances for the team, he’s currently ranked 6th in Germany’s all time top scorer’s list, joining the ranks of past greats like Uwe Seeler and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge. He still has someway to go to beat his former coach, Jürgen Klinsmann.
Miroslav Klose is a feared and vastly-experienced striker whose name is inextricably linked with the World Cup finals. A relative slow starter in the game, the Bayern Munich star made his Germany debut in 2001, but burst to prominence in the 2002 finals in Japan and South Korea, scoring five goals as Germany were defeated in the final by Brazil.
Four years later, and on home turf, Klose took the world stage by storm once more as another five-goal haul earned him the Golden Boot award. With a strike-rate around the 50% mark and approaching 100 caps, Klose is a formidable asset for Joachim Low.
After spells with SG Blaubach-Diedelkopf and FC Homburg, as well as a time spent as a carpenter, the Polish-born striker joined Kaiserslautern in 1999 at the age of 22.
Following his star turn at the 2002 World Cup, Klose played a further two seasons for Kaiserslautern before joining Werder Bremen for ¬5 million in the summer of 2004 and excelled for his new club – most notably in the 2005-06 season when he scored a remarkable 25 goals in 26 Bundesliga games, winning the German Player of the Year award before impressing once more on the global stage.
In 2007, Klose continued his upwards trajectory and joined Bayern Munich for an undisclosed fee as the giants embarked on an ambitious spending spree, recruiting the likes of Luca Toni and Franck Ribery despite failing to qualify for the Champions League. In his first season he won a domestic Double and in his second, scored an impressive seven goals in eight Champions League games.
After scoring another seven goals in eight World Cup qualifiers, Klose approaches the 2010 finals with an outside chance of surpassing Brazil’s Ronaldo (15) as the all-time top scorer in World Cup final tournaments.
Klose is known for his goalscoring instincts, aerial ability, and unselfish play. Probably one of the most important goals Klose scored was against Argentina in the quarterfinals, where he scored the equalizing goal when Germany were down 1-0. Germany than went on to win the game on a penalty shootout.
Klose is the first German since Gerd Müller in the 1970s to become the top scorer at a World Cup, and the first World Cup finals top scorer from unified Germany.
