When Germany really had to score, the tactical nuances suddenly dried up. At 2-1 down to Ghana on the weekend, Thomas Muller stopped being a pretend “false nine” and Miroslav Klose appeared on the pitch as an entirely real, definite number nine. Then he scored, as he tends to.
Bastian Schweinsteiger slung the corner in, Benedikt Howedes edged it on and Klose stood exactly where he had to be, exactly like he always does, and slipped the ball over the line. He scored the equaliser for Germany and joined Ronaldo (Brazilian, not Cristiano) as the World Cup’s highest ever goalscorer, with 15 goals. It was a new record for him, but an exact repetition of what the 36 year-old has done for the last four World Cups—yet another goal.
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Klose has become the most reliable goalscorer in World Cup history. Not the most spectacular or regular goalscorer (Ronaldo collected his total in fewer games), but the most reliable. He’s done it by dutifully turning up in the correct places over and over again. When he plays, Germany’s game gets simplified: get him the chances and he’ll translate them neatly into goals.
The question now is only of his precise positioning in the World Cup pantheon.
“Welcome to the club,” Brazilian Ronaldo tweeted. “I can only imagine your happiness!!! What a great World Cup!!!” Once we get beyond the dangerously excessive use of exclamation marks, the cheery message was one welcoming Klose to the exclusive “World Cup Top Scorers’ Club” of which previously only he was a part. But unfortunately for Ronaldo, Ronaldo’s opinion is not the definitive opinion on a football player. So, we get to decide: how should Klose be thought of? As a genuine World Cup legend? Or merely as a decent stats machine, churning out the goals without the romance attached to real legends?
The guy himself certainly didn’t seem to think he was the in the legend bracket the last time he was asked about anything like this. “It’s an absolute joke to compare me with Gerd Muller,” he said, “no one compares to him, no one.” The logic was probably that, despite having gone past Muller’s goalscoring record for Germany, he’d taken twice as many games to do it, and thus didn’t deserve the same levels of acclaim. Although, even then, referring to himself as “an absolute joke” seemed a little too self-deprecating.
My view is a little different, especially with the latest addition to Klose’s collection of World Cup goals. My view focuses on his World Cup performances and reckons that there is no such thing as “merely” a ruthless accumulator as far as World Cup goals go. However efficiently Klose has constructed his 15 strong portfolio, World Cup goals are so rare and hard to gather that you can’t help but be a tournament great by having 15 of them. Whatever they look like, World Cup goals are inherently romantic—they always come packed with meaning. And if you score 15 of them to become the (joint) most prolific World Cup player ever, you’re a World Cup legend because you’ve collected more meaningful World Cup moments than anyone else (Ronaldo aside).
But for further proof of Klose’s status we can look at the individual moments for the individual goals—unique, each one of them, in their own (sometimes slightly tenuous ways). These weren’t mere statistics.
In 2002—yes, that’s 2002!—there was the first one. It came against Saudi Arabia in an 8-0 group game win as part of pair, with Klose heading-in after Carsten Jancker missed his overhead kick attempt. You might think that when Jancker missed his kick we missed the chance to see a really great moment. But in fact we had one of those replaced by another—Klose’s innocuous header was the first World Cup goal from the guy who would one day become the highest goalscorer in the tournament ever.
In 2006, Klose secured a far more naturally memorable moment. His late equaliser took Argentina to penalties and helped Germany into the semifinals of a home World Cup. A poacher’s goal, yet again, but he pulled together a nation with that tap-in. And for that he’ll always be remembered and even honoured—for services to the tap-in. Has anyone else ever been better at scoring them?
In 2010, Klose did-in Fabio Capello’s England. Once again demonstrating the power of the tap-in, he got on the end of a goal kick and finished with one touch, piercing England’s expectation-bubble before twenty minutes had even gone by in that game.
What you find is that it’s really hard to find World Cup goals that don’t matter. This weekend Klose got the record-equalling 15th World Cup goal to save Germany against Ghana, another non-explosive finish, but which still managed to scatter meaning—of the personal, national and World Cup variety—all over the place. Of course a player with this many of these things is a World Cup legend.
It goes without saying, however, that Germany won’t care about that for now and Klose won’t either. Chances to add to his collection are still to come in this tournament so he’ll only be looking for more. On those terms, United States and everyone else should probably watch out—there’s a World Cup legend hanging about a penalty area near you.
Ethan Dean-Richards is a London-based writer. Follow him on Twitter.