A Klose comfort for Germany

It is the phrase most often and most casually used of German international sides: That they are 'great tournament teams'. What it means is that Germans seem to pace themselves better than anybody in the rarified, unfamiliar environment that heaps six or seven away games on a group of players in the course of a month.

The implication is also that tournament teams challenge the notions and the routines of club sides, of footballers accustomed to working to the rhythm of home one weekend, away the next; of European engagements one midweek, a cup match the next. When Joachim Loew, the Germany coach, selected his strikers for the 2010 World Cup, he bent in favour of tournament logic, and rejected the immediate precedents of club form, even of apparent readiness. He did not invite Kevin Kuranyi, the experienced international striker who had completed the Bundesliga season with classy performances and plenty of goals.

But he did pick three forwards who had variously slipped down the hierarchy at Bayern Munich, the champions. He chose Lukas Podolski, whom Bayern had let leave after three years spent assessing the player and coming to the conclusion he was not going to challenge sufficiently for a starting place. Loew chose Mario Gomez, who like Podolski had joined Bayern with great expectations but who, by the time Bayern were closing in on the title and Champions League final was outside the starting XI.

And Loew asked Miroslav Klose to come to his third World Cup at the age of 32. Klose is also a Bayern striker, one with a mere three Bundesliga goals to his name between last August and the following May. The Klose that Loew recognised was the 'tournament player' par excellence, a No 9 and leader of the line whose goals had pushed the national side through qualification - Klose scored six times in eight matches - and whose World Cup summers tended to be productive.

Klose, with six strikes, won the Golden Boot when Germany hosted and finished third at the 2006 finals. Klose scored four times in the 2002 tournament, where the Germans reached the final. He has four goals now in the 2010 competition, from four outings, having missed the final group match through suspension. It puts him one away from equalling the World Cup record of Brazil's Ronaldo, who has 15 goals from four competitions, although, like Klose, Ronaldo actually played in just three tournaments.

Perhaps Klose's most important strike here in South Africa was the first goal of Germany's 4-1 win in the last 16 round against England. It was straightforward in its engineering, a long pass delivered in between England's centre-halves for Klose to chase. The 32-year-old tussled with Matthew Upson, until Klose delivered the telling contact. It was then, in that act of determination and that final stretch, that Klose felt the benefit of the hard labour he had put into the preparation for the tournament. "I have been two extra workouts a day, separate from the team practice," he told reporters. "I was aware I was under review and I thought extra fitness would give me the edge. I lost five kilograms and I felt I could have a strong World Cup."

The rustiness that his intermittent, substitute appearances, for Bayern had been shaken off and Loew's faith answered. Klose is keeping up with the speed Germany's team have in abundance and exploit so well on the counter-attack. Loew said in a press conference of the Poland-born striker, who will win his 101st cap against Spain, "he knows his strengths and limitations perfectly." Loew knows Klose is at his strongest in tournaments, in the jersey of his country.

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