Germany coach Joachim Loew has backed Miroslav Klose to end his slump and return to the form which made him the World Cup's top-scorer four years ago.

After being crowned top-scorer at Germany 2006, Klose, who turned 32 on Wednesday, was a shadow of his former self at Bayern Munich last season, scoring just three Bundesliga goals and mainly warming the bench.

But with 48 goals in 96 games for Germany, Loew knows his striker has proven pedigree with the national side and says Klose is returning to form, having scored twice in a practice match here on Monday.

"He has worked hard in recent weeks and I felt for the first time on Tuesday that he felt better prepared physically," Loew insisted on Wednesday at Germany's World Cup base here.

"He is a very important player for us, but the situation was not easy for him last season.

"Bayern won the league and cup double, he has not played much and has a strong desire to compete.

"But he has worked hard in our training sessions."

It was Klose's goals which took Germany to the World Cup in South Africa after his single effort in Moscow last October booked Loew's side their place here.

As a player who shuns the media limelight, Klose has held his tongue over his lack of opportunities at Bayern up front behind Croatia's Ivica Olic and Germany teammates Thomas Mueller and Mario Gomez.

He faces a race with Stuttgart's Brazilian-born forward Cacau to be selected as Germany's lone striker for their opening World Cup clash on Sunday, but insists he has taken on extra training to prove himself.

Cacau has stolen a march on Klose in the race to be chosen for Sunday after the Stuttgart ace scored three goals in two pre-World Cup warm-up games while Klose failed to find the net.

"I am confident I will play well at the World Cup," Klose told German magazine Kicker on Monday.

"Since I am on probation in terms of selection, I have been doing two workouts a day and working hard in training."

Klose's World Cup record speaks for itself: in each of the last two tournaments he has scored five goals.

"I want to score more than five goals this time, I know that Brazil's Ronaldo leads the all-time World Cup scorers with 15 goals in front of (Germany's) Gerd Muller," he said.

With ten goals to his name, Klose is the only player competing in South Africa who can dislodge Ronaldo as the World Cup's top scorer of all time.

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