Miroslav Klose: The Importance of Goals in Football
Miroslav Klose has never been confused about what wins football matches.
Goals. Real goals. From real No 9s.
Germany’s record scorer, the man who once stood alone atop the World Cup charts, looks at the modern game and still comes back to the same, simple truth: you need someone in the box.
Across a career that began in the German amateur leagues and wound its way through Kaiserslautern, Werder Bremen, Bayern Munich and Lazio, Klose scored more than 300 times. Almost all of them from the area that defined him.
He counts them back in his mind. Only two, he reckons, came from outside the penalty area.
‘You need someone in the box’
“Thankfully, we’ve moved away a little from the idea of the false nine or having a second striker playing around the main striker, with everyone coming towards the ball,” says the FC Nuremberg head coach.
For Klose, all the tactical fashions still lead to the same destination.
“You need someone who is there to score goals. You need someone in the box because that’s where you’re closest to the goal. That’s why I’m a big believer in practising the final ball, whether it’s a cross, a shot or something else.
“That’s crucial. How do you create that final ball? When you develop automatisms and players get to know each other better, that’s when you see harmony on the pitch.
“It can make things look effortless, but it involves a huge amount of work. A lot of work in training and attention to detail, making sure the players communicate with each other and understand their team-mates’ strengths and weaknesses.”
That obsession with detail powered his own career. Klose would study defenders’ movement, examine goalkeepers’ habits, zoom in on their stance when a shot came in. Did they spread themselves? Were the hands high, or low? Where was the gap?
“When goals are scored, the whole team deserves credit,” he says, still as selfless in conversation as he was in the penalty area. “But you still need someone who has that ability in their feet or in their head to put the ball in the net.”
From late bloomer to World Cup winner
Klose knows what it means to wait for a breakthrough. His journey began in communist Poland, before his father Josef, a former Auxerre player, moved the family to West Germany when Miroslav was eight.
There was no elite academy pathway, no golden ticket. He played in the lower leagues while training as a carpenter, then finally earned a move to Kaiserslautern.
Like Harry Kane, he did not arrive fully formed. Both were in their early 20s before they truly established themselves in top-flight football. Klose’s rise then accelerated: two years after his Bundesliga debut, he was starting a World Cup final against Brazil.
The pinnacle came in 2014. At 36, Klose lifted the World Cup with Germany, having broken Ronaldo’s tournament scoring record in that astonishing 7-1 semi-final win over hosts Brazil. For Kane and England, still chasing their own major title, Klose’s story is a reminder that the door does not slam shut in your late twenties.
Kane as a template
Now 48, Klose looks at Kane and sees a kindred spirit in the way the England captain has reshaped and refined his game over time. He uses him as a teaching tool.
“You could always see his quality, and he’s worked incredibly hard to get where he is,” Klose says of the Ballon d’Or winner.
“He’s also a great role model for me, particularly because he has stayed in Germany. I often tell my players that they should look at someone like him as an example.
“Young players can’t yet have the instinct and experience he has developed, but that’s where it starts – thinking about what you can and can’t do as a footballer. You have to keep learning. That’s the crucial thing for me.
“If you understand that you train to become better, then in five years’ time you’ll naturally be a different player. But if you think everything will happen automatically just because 10 people around you tell you that you’re a fantastic player, I don’t think you’ll continue to develop.”
Klose has made that message the backbone of his work with young talent. He cut his teeth with Bayern Munich’s under-17s and has carried that developmental edge into Nuremberg.
According to Transfermarkt, his side are the youngest in Germany’s second tier, with an average age of 23.3 years.
“You need that balance and a certain core of experienced players,” he says. “But we’re very brave in that respect. Over the three years I’ve been here, we’ve made progress in how we assess young players and in the conversations we have about them.
“How do we rate them? How far along are they? What do they need to work on to take the next step? Is it perhaps more about their physical development? Because from a footballing perspective, we’re already producing some really good players.”
Building Nuremberg’s next wave
Klose’s coaching career began with the national team set-up, then took him back to Bayern as Hansi Flick’s assistant, before a first managerial job at Rheindorf Altach in Austria. Nuremberg, one of Germany’s historically decorated clubs, became his next project in 2024.
He guided them to 10th and then eighth in his first two seasons. This year, the picture is different: Nuremberg sit second, behind Hertha BSC, and share top spot in the league’s scoring charts as they chase a first Bundesliga return since 2019.
When he arrived, he went straight to the roots.
“When I first arrived, I spoke to the youth coaches about the club’s DNA and its coaching philosophy, and what they focus on,” he recalls.
“There was already a lot of common ground. We suggested trying certain things because we wanted to do a little more in particular areas, and they were open to that.
“That’s important. We benefit from this because our young players are getting opportunities in the first team, and everyone is paying attention to their development.
“But that journey starts with the youth coaches. I know how important it is to take those steps. We’re benefiting from that now because we have access to so many young talents.
“As a coaching team, we’re brave enough to give them opportunities when we see that they can compete at this level. That’s the first step.”
The numbers back him up. Of the 11 players with the most minutes under Klose this season, seven are 22 or younger. Among them is top scorer Mohamed Ali Zoma, already capped by Italy, and 17-year-old midfielder Marc Kornwachs, who has quickly drawn attention.
“Of course, everyone gets a lot of praise, as is currently the case with Marc Kornwachs,” Klose says.
“But his journey isn’t over yet. Now it’s about helping him become more consistent and establishing himself, while continuing to develop his game and take further steps forward.
“These players are so talented that we have absolutely no hesitation in giving them opportunities, regardless of the scoreline.”
A young manager with an old striker’s clarity
For all his medals and records, Klose talks about his coaching career as if he were back in those early days in the lower leagues, learning on the fly and grinding his way up.
“I’m very comfortable with the steps I’ve taken, even though it involves a huge amount of work,” he says. “You learn something every day.
“I’ve said that I’m already a much better manager than I was three years ago. That’s perfectly normal, and you have to embrace it. I’ve always been willing and eager to learn, and I’ve always been a hard worker. That isn’t going to change.”
So what does a Miroslav Klose team look like?
“Personally, as a player, I always liked having the ball for long periods, and that hasn’t changed,” he explains.
“When you have the ball, you have a certain level of dominance. I know you also have to be very adaptable in terms of possession, and that’s something we are. We constantly show the players different ways of playing out of situations.
“It’s great to see how they develop and to be able to support individual players along the way. That’s exactly the approach I like to take as a manager.”
The great finisher now builds a side rather than a move, but the principle is the same. Study the details, trust the work, put the right players in the right areas.
Then wait for the moment in the box that changes everything.
