A man is walking purposely through the centre of Bracciano, a wonderful village out in the countryside about 30 kilometers northwest of Rome. He goes past its 15th century castle where Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes got married and takes the path down to the lake. There is a fishing rod resting on his shoulder and a bunch of magazines under his arm.
Miroslav Klose is on pace to score over 20 goals this season for Lazio, and while he is unlikely to maintain that torrid pace, the tally would eclipse the combined total from his two best Bayern campaigns.
| Season | Club | Games | Goals |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2007-08 | Bayern Munich | 27 | 10 |
| 2008-09 | Bayern Munich | 26 | 10 |
| 2009-10 | Bayern Munich | 25 | 3 |
| 2010-11 | Bayern Munich | 20 | 1 |
| 2011-12 | Lazio | 10 | 6 |
He hires a boat, takes it onto the water, finds a spot then casts out his line. It’s quiet. The sound of waves and birdsong is all that can be heard. It’s a time for contemplation. Miroslav Klose is content. He believes happiness is to be found in “seeing the float go under.”
The mentality of a fisherman shares a lot in common with that of a striker. Patience. Concentration. Hours can go by without a bite, but when one comes, it’s important to be ready. Klose nearly always is.
Since joining Lazio in the summer on a free transfer from Bayern Munich, stats from Opta show that Klose has scored six goals in Serie A and needed only 10 shots on target to get to that total. They have been worth eight points to his team. Without them Lazio would be level with Siena in mid-table, and not neck-and-neck with Juventus ahead of Saturday’s top of the table clash at the Stadio Olimpico (2:30 p.m. ET, FOX Soccer). No wonder coach Edy Reja says: “Klose is irreplaceable.”
Lazio are simply not the same when he isn’t playing. Against Napoli last weekend for instance, they mustered only four attempts on goal, a 72% decrease on their season average of 14.5. That figure can to some extent be explained by the circumstances in which Lazio found themselves. They were away from home, not at full strength, so Reja chose to be cautious in his tactics. Still, one cannot disregard Klose’s importance to Lazio, not when his partner Djibril Cissé has failed to score in two months.
“We can win the Scudetto with Klose,” claimed the Lazio midfielder Stefano Mauri. That does not appear entirely realistic, though an improvement on last season’s fifth place finish is not beyond the realm of possibility. Lazio only missed out on qualifying for the preliminary stages of the Champions League on goal difference to Udinese, and it was for that reason they moved to bolster their misfiring attack during the off-season.
Klose could have stayed at Bayern. There was a one-year contract extension on the table, and with it a clause promising an automatic renewal after making 15 appearances for the club. But regular first team football wasn’t guaranteed and the prospect of sitting on the sidelines and missing out on a place in the Germany squad for a European Championship in 2012 (to be co-hosted by Poland, the country of his birth) prompted him to leave.
With his heart set on breaking Gerd Müller’s international goalscoring record next summer - a record he is five goals away from equaling - “there was little we could do,” lamented Bayern coach Jupp Heynckes. Klose, meanwhile, assessed his options. He turned down Valencia and a big money offer from Galatasaray, instead accepting a pay-cut to play for Lazio. He knew they needed a striker, and Lazio knew he needed to play week-in week-out if he were to stay in Germany coach Jogi Löw’s plans.
The move suited both parties. Any doubts that at 33, Klose was by now in decline - an argument based on his record over the last two years in the Bundesliga, during which time he found the net on just four occasions - were soon dispelled. He scored the first goal of the season in Serie A against reigning champions Milan in a 2-2 draw at San Siro. And they kept on coming. With five in seven games, only Beppe Signori in 1992 and Mauro Zárate in 2008 got their respective Lazio careers off to a better start.
“Football in Germany is a bit quicker,” Klose revealed in an interview with Kicker. “In the Bundesliga the line of the defense plays 5m further forward and the teams press, they don’t back off 15m. Here it’s the opposite.” Not that Klose is complaining. According to Opta, of the players to have hit 20 shots or more in Serie A this season, he has the second highest conversion rate behind Atalanta’s in-form Germán Denis. It’s clear he is thriving in his new surroundings.
“What we are seeing is perhaps the best Klose ever,” Franz Beckenbauer told Bild. “Leaving Germany has given him a happy-go-luckiness. He is worshipped in Italy and enjoys a consideration that he hadn’t recently had [in Germany].”
Beckenbauer was of course talking after the Rome derby on October 16. Klose had endeared himself to the Curva Nord in the finest way possible - by ending a humiliating five-game losing streak to their rivals with a dramatic 93rd minute winner.
Overnight, he went from Miro Klose to Mito Klose [Mito being the Italian for ‘Legend’]. Yet he insists on being treated like a normal guy. “I don’t need a Porsche or a Mercedes,” he said. “My Audi A3 and a Mini are already too much.” That’s quite a contrast with Cissé who has a fleet of fancy cars and went on MTV’s Pimp My Ride with Fat Joe.
Life in the fast lane is not for Klose. Even when growing up as the son of a footballer – his father Josef briefly played for Auxerre – he never thought it was his destiny to follow in his footsteps. Klose stayed humble. He even trained as a carpenter.
A hard worker, he never stops chipping away, although when Lazio host Juventus on Saturday, he would be advised to touch wood for good luck. Klose has faced the great goalkeeper Gigi Buffon seven times and only beaten him once. Most strikers would get frustrated. But the fisherman in the back of the Klose’s mind will tell him to be patient, for sooner or later, like on Lake Bracciano, the net will bulge again.
