Head to Head: Miroslav Klose v. Luca Toni

Miroslav Marian Joseph Klose was born in communist Poland and is now Germany’s main front man. He didn’t make his breakthrough till 2001, but since then one can only describe his progress as miraculous.

Klose scored 33 goals in 67 matches for Kaiserslautern in the 2001-02 season. This, along with the goals in the qualifiers, was enough to earn him a starting berth in Rudi Voller’s squad for the 2002 World Cup, where he won the silver boot.

For the Euros, in 2004, Kevin Kuranyi was preferred as first choice ahead of “Miro” but the arrival of Jurgen Klinsmann at the realm along with Jochim Low brought him back his starting berth. During the 2005-06 season, Klose hit an amazing 25 goals and provided 16 assists in only 26 matches. A month after that Klose was seen with a third place medal and a Golden Boot from the World Cup, along with the Bundesliga Cannon and German Player of the Year Award.

Luca Toni was born in Italy, where he became the first man to score more than 30 goals in Seria A with Palermo and Fiorentina since the 1958-59 season. He was part of Italy’s 2006 World Cup squad as well as the '08 Euros squad. He hit 27 goals in 36 appearances for Bayern in the Bundesliga to earn him the Cannon.

Both now play for Bayern Munich. Week-in, week-out the press sings the praises of Luca Toni, leaving none for Klose. Then why does Miro Klose have a starting berth in the German squad through thick and thin, whereas Luca Toni only warms the bench for Italy?

Let me tell you why.

Behind most of Luca Toni’s goals, there is one man doing the hard work for him. That man is Miro Klose. Undoubtedly the most unselfish player anyone can come across in the beautiful game, this man is indeed the most intelligent playmaker of the front line. In Germany, this is what makes him so special. He cares about the team, not about himself. Yet this man has 44 international goals in 85 matches whereas Luca Toni only has 15 in 41 appearances.

Any other striker of Klose’s intellect would have hit 60 or more goals. But instead of scoring himself, Miro makes sure his teammates are not left out and passes to them (ask Lukas Podolski, he will tell you).

In Bayern last season, he scored 21 goals in all competitions, but provided the highest number of assists alongside Franck Ribery last season—eight. Whereas everybody else was appreciating Luca Toni, Klinsmann and Low were looking at this man.

In Helsinki, against Finland, when there was nobody else to save Germany, it was Klose who scored a hat-trick to save them from the shame of a defeat to a nation ranked 40 places or so lower than them.

Against Argentina, when the German team went to sleep, this man headed in the equalizer. More importantly, in all the matches in which Klose has captained Germany, they didn’t lose.

Luca Toni, the only good thing I have ever seen him do was score twice to deny ten-man Getafe a place in the Uefa Cup semifinals. Ironically, in the semis, with Klose and Podolski as the front men Bayern drew 1-1 with Zenit whereas when Luca Toni returned for the second leg, they lost 4-0, a match which saw Klose playing with a broken nose and thus being subbed in the 61st minute or so.

When Bayern were down 1-0 against Hamburg, Klose scored his 100th Bundesliga goal to deny them. He also scored the only goal against Schalke, which saw them winning 1-0 (I saw the goal, it was awesome!).

All these things point out to the same fact: Luca Toni does the donkey work and gets all the fame, whereas Miro Klose does all the smart and hard work and gets none of the fame (He gets the bashing of the German press who don’t have a clue about how the goals are created).

My choice between the two would be Miroslav Klose. Who would be yours?