The legendary Gert Muller recently came out swinging hard against today’s German strikers, remarking that they were not worth even the remotest comparison to his contemporaries. The FTBL ratings of German strikers, indeed, would appear to confirm these dire assessments from, perhaps, Germany’s most celebrated striker of all times: the top German striker at the moment has an overall FTBL rating lower than that of the top German midfielder, despite the fact that the rating is designer with a built-in bias towards forwards.

Take, for example, FC Köln’s Lukas Podolsky (pictured left). This once feared striker in his Bayern Munich days now has an overall FTBL rating of just 122.75 rating points, buried in 46th place in the world ranking. True, this rating has something to do with Podolsky’s change of teams: Köln win less often than Bayern, but Podolsky himself seldom finds the net nowadays (just 2 goals in his last nine games).

In his next two games, Podolsky will have planks of more than 30 rating points, and it is safe to bet he will fall short: the first game will pit Köln against…Bayern, who have not lost a single home game since the beginning of the season. Then, Podolsky will travel with the German squad to Russia for a World Cup 2010 qualifier. It could be safely predicted that Podolsky’s rating will not rise above the 120-point mark before the Bundesliga game against Mainz, which will take place on October 17. You can comment on this prognosis at Offer a Bet with another fan at our bet exchange BetEx. God luck!