🎥 World Cup countdown: Miroslav Klose's 16 tournament goals | OneFootball

There’s great goalscorers, and then there’s scorers of great goals.

Miroslav Klose is very definitely the former.

Germany had been looking for the next Gerd Müller ever since the Mannschaft great hung up his international boots in 1974.

Brilliant strikers like Jürgen Klinsmann and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge had fired them to glory after that, but it wasn’t until Klose’s arrival in 2001 that his true heir had been found.

2002 was the first World Cup to feel the full force of the Poland-born legend – netting five times including a hat-trick against Saudi Arabia.

A home tournament four years later would see Klose score the vital goal in a quarter-final against Argentina, whilst in 2010 the same South Americans were put to the sword again in the same round – this time Klose bagged two in a 4-0 rout.

2014 would be his final bow as an international striker, and fittingly his record-breaking 16th goal in the competition came against Brazil – beating the previous title-holder Ronaldo.

Will Miroslav Klose go down in history as one of the best players of all-time? Probably not. Will he be remembered as one of the game’s best natural goalscorers? Almost definitely.