Many goals to tell a tale

Miroslav Klose was the Prince of Stealth on the field, standing out in the list of German world-beaters.

Miroslav Klose will never score another goal for Germany. The only person who could make that statement definitive was Klose himself, and last Monday, one month after breaking the all-time World Cup scoring record, he did precisely that.

“Lifting the trophy in Brazil was the fulfillment of a childhood dream for me,” he said. “I had a unique and wonderful time with the Nationalmannschaft and enjoyed many unforgettable moments,” he went on. “I cannot think of a better time to bring the international chapter of my career to a close.”

And with that farewell, posted on the German football federation website, he was gone. Or almost.

For not even Klose, the prince of stealth in his game, can slide so silently away from his fame. For 12 years, he had been like the house party guest who you barely knew was there, except when he left with the silver. Goals, invariably simple, sharp, direct, were his calling cards. He stacked them up at four successive World Cups — in Korea and Japan in 2002, Germany in 2006, South Africa in 2010 and Brazil in 2014. Every defender on earth knew his method and his movement, every coach preached how never to let your eyes off Klose in the goalmouth. And yet every defender, every goalkeeper, lost sight of him for the split second it took for this Polish-born German to eclipse the record set in the 1970s by the redoubtable Gerd Müller, and then by the only other man to surpass Müller’s total, the Brazilian Ronaldo da Lima.

Don’t compare him to Müller, Klose pleaded years ago. Such comparisons, he said, would be a joke.

Don’t put him up there with Ronaldo, he said more recently. Everyone knows that Ronaldo was the best ever.

Too bad, then, Klose. For it was Müller and Ronaldo who led the chorus of tributes to your guile, your longevity, your seemingly inevitable ability to steal a yard of space and turn a half chance into a goal which few even suspected might happen.

The pure goalscorer is a breed apart. He is born with something akin to the homing instincts in a pigeon. “Something inside your head says, 'Gerd, go this way, or Gerd go that way,' and I go,” Müller had said 40 years ago.

“Welcome to the club,” Ronaldo tweeted in Belo Horizonte the night that Klose stole a goal from five yards against Ghana during the past World Cup in Brazil. Klose had been on the field less than two minutes, he evened the score with his first touch after Ghana led, 2-1, and the rest, as they say, became history.

“What a nice World Cup,” Brazil’s Ronaldo had concluded his message that night.What a defining World Cup it was in the semifinal match, as Brazil wept while Germany swept the host nation out of the tournament, with, of course, Klose contributing to the 7-1 hiding that was unprecedented in the 90-year history of the event.

That was also the night Klose closed his account with his 16th goal in World Cup finals. It took him 23 games to compile that total, one more goal than Ronaldo (15 goals in 19 games) and two more than Müller (an astonishing 14 goals from 13 games).

For the record, the French-Moroccan Just Fontaine scored 13 times, all at one World Cup in only six games. And Pelé’s record ended at 12 goals from 14 games.Special, special men, these historic players. Pelé, of course, was much more than a striker, and Ronaldo da Lima was perhaps the closest in modern times to his range of skills and his physical dexterity.

But cold statistics count in the goal scorer, and from Day 1 of their meeting when Joachim Löw became the assistant to Germany’s coach Jurgen Klinsmann a decade ago, a bond of trust was formed.

“Miro was already in the national team when I joined the DFB as assistant coach in 2004,” Löw said Monday, “so we have now spent 10 years working together. His aerial strength, presence in the penalty area, understanding of the game and tireless commitment are without equal, and yet I have rarely encountered a player so down to earth, modest, fair, professional, reliable and team-spirited.”

The mutual respect between coach and striker was such that even when Bayern Munich felt Klose’s time as a top class finisher was up and released him to go to Lazio in Rome, the German national coach kept on picking him.

All that Löw asked was that Klose, now 36, keep his six-foot frame lean and his appetite keen, and he would take him to the three World Cups ahead of any other striker. And all the while, on every continent, Klose would repay that faith by doing his thing.

Not one goal from the finisher came from outside the penalty box, but after each of them, scored with the right foot, the left or the head, the only flamboyance was his trade mark flip in celebration.

Over the years, we watched his instinctive stealing of goals and the acrobat’s forward somersault which, again, was the ingrained mark of a natural athlete whose father had been a soccer pro and whose mother played handball for the Polish national side.The family left Silesia for Germany when Miroslav was two. He trained in his youth to be a carpenter, but stripping down defenses became his life’s work. One other trait that is uncommon in the modern pro is that twice, playing in Germany in 2005 and in Italy in 2012, Klose owned to referees rather than accept gift goals to add to his tally. He declined a penalty awarded him while playing for Werder Bremen, and he told a ref in a key game for Lazio against Napoli that he had handled the ball before scoring.

Rare acts for the predator who otherwise finished off opponents without compunction. Klose is the second German, following Philipp Lahm, to retire from the German national team since the World Cup. Both will continue to play club soccer, and both are to be honored when Germany plays in Düsseldorf on Sept 3 — a friendly repeat of the World Cup final against Argentina.

The new era starts then, with Lahm and Klose in the stands.