Tribute to Herr Klose.

What else can you say about this man?

Miroslav Klose seems like he has been around forever, and his goal rate seems constant.

Everywhere he's gone(okay granted, he has only played for 4 clubs) he has scored goals.

Some players have a tendency to play better for club than for country(Messi), and some players play better for country than for club, but Klose has remained a model for professionals not only in football, but in sport as a whole.

Klose started his career in little known Kaiserslautern, but even then the goals came easily.In his first 67 matches, he scored 33 goals. By any standard, that is an impressive goals to game ratio.

And not too long after, he signed with Werder Bremen, where his reputation for a goal poacher burgeoned. 25 goals in a season is always impressive. but to call him a goal poacher, is doing the man injustice. Klose is not only up there with the great poachers like Van Nistelrooy, but he can fill the playmaker role just as comfortably, providing his teammates with 16 assists.

So indirectly, he was responsible for 41 goals in a single season. Incredible.

Then came the move to Bayern Munich.He didnt make much of an impact on his first season, only scoring 20 goals in all competitions. If you ask me, that itself is very impressive, but by Klose's lofty standards, his debut season with Bayern was deemed a somewhat failure. The second season however, was anything but. Again, with 20 goals in a season, which could have been more had he not sustained an injury in March. He also helped himself to 7 goals in the Champions League, and was second only to the great Messi.

Surely, he was to remain at Bayern and finish his career a legend. But surprisingly, to me at least, he's moved to Lazio. Yet, his goals have not dried up. So far, he has helped Lazio to second place, including a winner in the 93rd minute in the always fiery Rome derby.

Even in national colours, Klose has never failed to deliver, having the distinction as the only person to score 5 or more goals in consecutive World Cups, as well as scoring 4 or more in three different tournaments. You might argue that the last World Cup was a year ago, but one need not look further than the Germany-Netherlands game last night.

And to prove my point :

Klose was involved in every goal Germany scored, the first with the lay off, the second with a wonderful header(seriously, who scores a header from there??) and the third, a wonderful interchange between him and Ozil to provide his counterpart with simplest of goals.

This is why it would be unfair to call him a mere goal poacher. The way he set up both goals and took his, makes him the complete player, in my eyes.

Why Man United never signed him at his peak, is beyond my belief. Heck why didn't most of the big clubs even declare interest. But then again, has he peaked? The goals just keep on coming.

Perhaps Sir Alex will do another Henrik Larsson and rope him in when he's 35. Sir Alex does have a reputation of signing strikers well into their careers, although Micheal Owen has not turned out so well.