Miroslav Klose

• 1. Introduction

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  Miroslav Klose scored 16 goals in the FIFA World Cup across four tournaments, a record no player has matched. He was born on the 9th of June 1978 in Opole, a Silesian city in Poland, and he arrived in West Germany as an eight-year-old in 1986 knowing only two words of German. He became not only Germany's greatest scorer of all time but a figure whose honesty and fair play set him apart from almost anyone else in the game. How did a boy from a German minority family in Poland, who trained with a local club in the seventh division, become the most prolific goalscorer in World Cup history? And why did a player with 71 goals for Germany choose, at the peak of his fame, to disallow his own goal?

• 2. Roots and Unlikely Beginnings

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  Josef Klose, Miroslav's father, left Poland in 1978 to play professional football for the French club Auxerre. He belonged to the Aussiedler, a German minority community whose families had stayed in Silesia after the region was ceded to Poland following World War II. Miroslav's mother, Barbara Jeż, was a member of the Poland women's national handball team, meaning Miroslav grew up in an elite athletic household even before he kicked a ball professionally.

  When eight-year-old Miroslav joined his father in Kusel, West Germany, he spoke almost no German. He found his footing through football at SG Blaubach-Diedelkopf, then competing in the West German seventh division. Alongside his football development, he trained as a carpenter's apprentice, a grounded and practical side that friends and observers would later see reflected in his no-nonsense approach to the game.

  Klose held a Polish passport before accepting German citizenship at the age of 18. In January 2001, Jerzy Engel, then head coach of the Polish national team, traveled to Germany personally to persuade Klose to represent Poland. Klose declined, explaining that he held a German passport and believed he had a chance to play for Rudi Völler. In a 2008 interview, he acknowledged the decision was not easy, and that if Polish officials had moved more quickly, he might have chosen differently.

• 3. Rising Through the Bundesliga

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  In 1998, Klose began his professional career at FC 08 Homburg at age 20, joining the reserve team. Twelve months later he moved to 1. FC Kaiserslautern, where he made his Bundesliga debut in April 2000. His 16 goals in the 2001-02 season fell just two short of the league's top scorer that year, a near-miss that signaled a prolific scorer was emerging.

  In March 2004, Werder Bremen signed him on a four-year contract for a transfer fee of five million euros, or approximately 6.2 million US dollars. His league debut for Bremen came on the 6th of August 2004 as a substitute for Paraguayan striker Nelson Valdez. Over his three seasons there, Klose developed into one of the Bundesliga's most feared forwards. He was named in the kicker Bundesliga Team of the Season for both 2004-05 and 2005-06, and he won the Golden Boot as Bundesliga top scorer in 2005-06 with 25 goals. The German Football Association also named him German Footballer of the Year in 2006.

  On the 7th of June 2007, Klose confirmed he would leave Bremen for Bayern Munich. Bayern president Karl-Heinz Rummenigge confirmed the deal on the 26th of June 2007, and Klose signed a four-year contract after completing his medical two days later. At Bayern, he won the Bundesliga and the DFB-Pokal in 2007-08 and again in 2009-10, as well as the DFL-Supercup in 2010, when he scored in the 81st minute.

• 4. Five Years in Rome

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  On the 9th of June 2011, Klose signed a three-year contract with Lazio in Serie A. The move was arranged partly through Lazio sporting director Igli Tare, who had been a teammate of Klose at 1. FC Kaiserslautern. Klose made his Serie A debut on the 9th of September 2011, scoring in the 12th minute of a 2-2 draw against Milan, a goal the source notes was the first Serie A goal of that season.

  On the 26th of September 2012, Klose accidentally scored a goal with his hand against Napoli. He immediately told the referee, who reversed the decision, spared Klose a yellow card, and shook his hand. The German Football Association gave him a fair play award for the act. When the University of Rome Tor Vergata presented him the Sport Ethics Award in 2016, Klose said of the Napoli incident: "For me it was easy, it's my character. We need to set an example."

  On the 5th of May 2013, Klose scored five goals against Bologna before being substituted for Louis Saha in the 68th minute. It was the first time since the 1984-85 season that a player had scored five goals in a single Serie A match. Weeks later, on the 26th of May, Lazio beat city rivals Roma 1-0 to win the Coppa Italia. It was the sixth Coppa Italia title in Lazio's history and the first time the final had been a Lazio-Roma derby.

  Klose's final goal for Lazio came from the penalty spot on the last day of the 2015-16 Serie A season. With his 64th goal for the club, he equalled Goran Pandev as the highest-scoring non-Italian in Lazio's history, and finished as the club's seventh-highest all-time scorer. He retired from playing on the 1st of November 2016.

• 5. A World Cup Record Built Over Four Tournaments

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  Klose's international debut came on the 24th of March 2001 in a World Cup qualifier against Albania. Germany head coach Rudi Völler sent him on as a substitute in the 73rd minute, and two minutes from time Klose headed in the winner in a 2-1 German victory. He celebrated with a front-flip, a signature that would follow him through four World Cups.

  At the 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan, Klose scored all five of his goals with his head, including a hat-trick in Germany's 8-0 win over Saudi Arabia. He became the first player to score five headed goals at a single World Cup. His celebrations earned him the nickname "Salto-Klose", a play on the German word for somersault. He finished joint second in the Golden Boot standings alongside Rivaldo.

  At the 2006 World Cup, played on German soil, Klose opened with a brace in a 4-2 win over Costa Rica and added two more in a 3-0 defeat of Ecuador. He scored a headed equaliser against Argentina in the quarter-finals before Germany won on penalties. His five goals gave him the Golden Boot.

  In the 2010 tournament, Klose scored four goals. His 12th World Cup goal, scored against England in the round of 16 on the 27th of June 2010, drew level with Pelé for fourth on the all-time list. His 100th international appearance, in the quarter-final against Argentina, saw him score twice and pull level with Gerd Müller's German World Cup record.

  In 2014, Klose entered the group match against Ghana on the 21st of June as a 69th-minute substitute, with Germany trailing 2-1. He scored to draw level with Ronaldo's then-record of 15 World Cup goals, becoming only the third player in history to score in four different World Cups. Then, on the 8th of July in the semi-final against hosts Brazil, Klose scored in the 23rd minute for his record 16th World Cup goal. Germany went on to win 7-1. Klose also became the first player to appear in four consecutive World Cup semi-finals. He started the final against Argentina and played until the 88th minute, when he was replaced by Mario Götze, who scored the 113th-minute winner to give Germany a 1-0 victory and the country's first World Cup title as a reunified nation. Klose announced his retirement from international football one month later, finishing with 71 goals in 137 appearances for Germany.

• 6. Fair Play as Identity

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  On the 30th of April 2005, while playing for Werder Bremen, Klose refused to accept a penalty the referee had awarded in his team's favor against Arminia Bielefeld, believing the decision was wrong. He was given a fair play award for the action, though he reacted to it with characteristic ambivalence: "It's a big honour for me to receive this award, but I am also a bit irritated. For me, it was something you should always do."

  When asked about the hand-ball goal against Napoli years later, Klose framed it in the same terms. He cited the visibility of professional football to young people: "There are many youngsters who watch football on TV and we are role models for them." The German Football Association agreed, presenting him a second fair play award for the Napoli incident.

  A visible counterpoint to Klose's conduct came during his time at Lazio, when a small group of radical Lazio fans displayed a sign reading "Klose mit uns" after his derby goal against Roma, styling the letters in the font of Adolf Hitler's Schutzstaffel. Klose explicitly condemned the sign, stating that politics should stay out of the stadium, a public rebuttal that matched the directness with which he handled the incidents on the pitch.

• 7. Life After Playing

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  On the 1st of November 2016, the same day he formally retired from playing, Klose joined the coaching staff of the German national team. He described the move as a return to where his greatest memories were made.

  On the 11th of May 2018, Bayern Munich named him head coach of their U-17 team, a role he held under a two-year contract until June 2020. On the 7th of May 2020, he signed a one-year contract as first-team assistant manager under Hansi Flick at Bayern. He left the club in May 2021.

  In June 2022, Klose was announced as head coach of Austrian Bundesliga club Rheindorf Altach. His managerial debut on the 16th of July was a 3-1 win over third-tier TWL Elektra in the Austrian Cup. Altach parted ways with Klose in March 2023.

  On the 11th of June 2024, 2. Bundesliga club 1. FC Nürnberg named Klose their head coach. In his first season he guided Nürnberg to a 10th-place finish, stabilizing the club in mid-table. On the 12th of February 2026, Nürnberg extended his contract until 2028, a signal that the club sees his development as a coach as a long-term project.