Klose Eyes Legend Status With Top Goalscorer Record In Sight.

Germany and Bayern Munich striker Miroslav Klose has announced his desire to become Germany’s all-time top goalscorer and take the title that has been held for so long by the legendary Gerd Mueller. In South Africa this summer, Klose had the chance of becoming the World Cup’s all-time top goalscorer, but felt short of the mark at the last hurdle when an unexpected injury ruled him out of Germany’s final fixture.

Now, though, Klose has set himself on reaching and then surpassing Gerd Mueller’s international goal tally, which stands at 68 strikes in 62 appearances. Talk about being prolific. Klose, on the other hand, has 52 goals in 102 appearances, which means he still needs to score 16 international goals to even reach Gerd Mueller’s record. The Bayern Munich striker, however, is confident of his chances.

“I will try to have another good game against Azerbaijan.I would love to score a goal in every match I play. We already know that Azerbaijan will be a tough team to face. When we last played them, we were only 1-0 up at half-time, prior to winning 4-0. It is always nice to be in the top two German goalscorers, but my aim is to see my nation do well. As a team, we are missing at least three of four weeks’ worth of preparation before we will be at full capacity again.”

Klose is already the second most prolific goalscorer in Germany’s history, but the gap between second and first is quite vast. Klose will definitely need to be in top form for at least two more years if he has any chance of coming close to scoring another 16 international goals. Here’s the table of Germany’s all-time top goalscorers.

# Player Goals Caps Avg/Game
1 Gerd Müller 68 62 1.09
2 Miroslav Klose* 53 102 0.52
3 Rudi Völler 47 90 0.52
= Jürgen Klinsmann 47 108 0.43
5 Karl-Heinz Rummenigge 45 95 0.47
6 Uwe Seeler 43 72 0.60
7 Michael Ballack* 42 98 0.43
8 Lukas Podolski* 40 80 0.5
9 Oliver Bierhoff 37 70 0.51
10 Fritz Walter 33 61 0.54