This is Legacy, GOAL's feature and podcast series following the road to the 2026 World Cup. Every week, we dive into the stories and the legacies that shaped football’s greatest nations. This time we turn to Germany, a nation once famed for producing the world’s deadliest strikers. From Gerd Müller to Miroslav Klose, the No.9 shirt was a symbol of power, precision, and pride. But since 2014, it’s become a question mark, a reflection of a team still searching for its next great finisher, and perhaps, for its own identity.
Looking through German-tinted glasses, it is clear that the national team's greatest success this millennium also marked the beginning of a rather fundamental crisis. At least, that is easy to say with the benefit of hindsight.
When Miroslav Klose scored his 16th World Cup goal in the memorable 7-1 victory over Brazil in the semi-final in Belo Horizonte in 2014, becoming the tournament's all-time leading scorer, a record that remains unbroken to this day, he not only ended his personal international career, but he also put an end to the era of the so-called ‘classic German centre-forward’, among whom Uwe Seeler, Gerd Müller, Klaus Fischer, Horst Hrubesch, Rudi Völler, Jürgen Klinsmann and Oliver Bierhoff are just the most famous names.
For over 13 years – or 137 international matches and 71 goals – Klose was considered the epitome of ruthless efficiency and instinctive goal-scoring. Klose, whose star rose internationally with his five goals at the 2002 World Cup, was Germany's last world-class striker. His departure from the national team after the triumph of 2014 meant the loss of a clear identity in the front line. From then on, the role of the German No.9 was mostly vacant, replaced by many tactical experiments and the search for a suitable successor.
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Search for a successor
Mario Gomez, who stood in Klose's shadow for a long time, could have been the one. He also played as a target man, bringing with him a good goal-scoring instinct and finishing ability, while at the same time not differing too much from Klose in terms of physical presence and heading ability.
But Gomez and the national team never really clicked. The long-time striker for Stuttgart and Bayern Munich always struggled to convert chances in the national jersey, going almost three years without scoring in competitive matches. When he somehow managed to miss the goal from close range in the match against Austria during the group stage of Euro 2008, shooting the ball over the bar instead, he had to contend with the mockery from German fans for a long time.
Without Klose, Germany tried for a while to achieve success with so-called false nines. They converted No.10 players or played with wingers through the centre. Mario Götze, Thomas Müller, Serge Gnabry and Kai Havertz were just a few of those who had to try their hand as false nines. These were all attempts to replace Klose's power with finesse in combination play. Three disastrous tournaments later – the 2018 World Cup, Euro 2021 and the 2022 World Cup – it was clear that this swap had not worked out.
Since then, and especially with a view to the 2026 World Cup, the question that has been hanging over the heads of various DFB officials for years has become increasingly pressing: Where has the historic DNA of the German striker gone?
The attempt to answer this question leads to the philosophy of youth development over the last decade-and-a-half, combined with the hope of finding a good solution by adopting international trends. The youth academies of German professional clubs generally produce versatile attacking players who are expected to combine, interpret space and participate in pressing. Players like Götze, for example. He brought Germany the World Cup victory in 2014 with his goal and played for Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich, but his career nevertheless remained slightly unfulfilled.
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Relic of the past
The training of pure, robust finishers was seen more as a relic of the past and was no longer really pursued explicitly. The invaluable ability to have a genuine goal-scoring instinct or to develop it in a more targeted manner in order to be able to prevail against two defenders, to be a fraction of a second quicker to the ball and to force a goal with the entire body in the manner of Gerd Müller – this power was sacrificed in favour of technical flexibility.
The desire was for attacking players who could participate in the game, partly because the supposedly static centre-forward was perceived as a tactical ‘brake’. He was denigrated as a figure who only disrupted the flow of possession and would have required ‘simple’ solutions such as a cross, which in those years was considered a rather underdeveloped offensive strategy.
The consequence of this ideological aberration was a systematic impoverishment of one of the most important positions in the game. Where once Gerd Müller, Völler, Klinsmann and later Klose stood and tied up defensive lines or wore down opponents with their mere presence, there was suddenly a void. The next generation of players, including Thomas Müller, Götze, Timo Werner, Havertz and Gnabry, were able to run into space in a tactically sophisticated manner. However, they often lacked the final touch at the moment of decisive confrontation in the penalty area.
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'Worst of the top nations'
The fundamental mistake in training was the assumption that the physical toughness and killer instinct of a ‘real’ No.9 could be learned later, while in younger years the cognitive and technical skills of a No.10 or winger were prioritised.
But Klose's success was based not only on his continuous presence and constant duels with his opponents, but also on his total focus on the goal. That is simply skill, no question, but it is also a mental attitude that can be trained over many years and must be consolidated. Otherwise, a striker cannot be the successful end point of a team's attack in theory or in practice.
In Germany, young, physically strong striker talents were often encouraged to drop back, make themselves available for passes instead of exploiting their physical advantages in the most dangerous area of the pitch. Training was dominated by the fear of losing the ball and the love of perfect structure.
Chance, improvisation, and perhaps even raw power in the penalty area – all things that are part of the striker gene of a classic No.9 – took a back seat. Hannes Wolf, director of development at the DFB since summer 2023, quickly recognised this tactical error in the structure of the youth academies. He recently put it bluntly in the Frankfurter Rundschau: ”We have trained poorly, there's no point in kidding ourselves. We were the worst of the top nations in terms of player development.”
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Commitment to pragmatism
That was a harsh slap in the face for the entire training philosophy, and Wolf has set himself the task of revolutionising it. With regard to the training of genuine attackers, he has already said: "If we take an 11-a-side game, the striker has 30 touches of the ball in 90 minutes. If he trains for half an hour, he has 10 touches of the ball, if you do the maths. How are you supposed to develop strikers through pure 11-a-side, through a large game format? It doesn't work. It used to work, but they didn't grow up in training. They grew up on the pitch."
The consequence of the impoverishment of the German striker pool is that the DFB squad is still searching for a pragmatic solution on the road to the 2026 World Cup. A ‘German Harry Kane’ or a talent who could one day become world-class is simply not there. The late discovery and first call-up of Niclas Füllkrug in November 2022 marked the clearest end to the ideology of the false nine. When the then Werder Bremen player made his Germany debut, he was the oldest outfield debutant since Martin Max in 2002, at 29 years and 280 days.
Although not at world-class level, Füllkrug brought exactly the qualities that Klose had perfected: Physical presence, heading ability and finishing skills. His call-up was a commitment to pragmatism. This necessary departure from the supposed aesthetic ideal was also supported by the management.
