..take a KLOSE look Rooney!!

IT will be 2.30pm local time in Barbados when the two outstanding strikers of the World Cup get down to serious business in Durban.

Wayne Rooney might be advised to tear himself away from the beach and watch closely.

He might be able to afford a £5million villa on his island paradise but he should keep his eyes peeled for a glimpse of another - Spain's David Villa.

Or Germany's Miroslav Klose, the other World Cup hotshot who could well decide the most eagerly anticipated semi-final for years.

It's the sort of stage we were told Rooney should be making his own.

Instead, we have the latest communique from Alex Ferguson that the Manchester United star's desperate World Cup was down to "too much expectation".

And that, in four years, we will see a different player. Providing, of course, England actually qualify for Brazil 2014.

Ah, yes, expectation. Pressure. Coping with the demands of life at the sharp end.

Well, no two players have had more pressure piled on them than Villa and Klose.

With the eclipse of Fernando Torres, Barcelona striker Villa had to carry his team to the semi-final almost on his own.

Spain, stuttering for much of the tournament, have scored just six goals. And Villa has five of them. Time and again he has been the difference for Vicente Del Bosque's side.

The Spain boss is so convinced of Villa's quality, he says: "I would have him over Cristiano Ronaldo and Kaka any day."

Joachim Low doesn't have to make any grandiose statements about Klose.

Just selecting a player who came into the World Cup on the back of his worst season EVER says it all.

Villa made his entry with 28 goals in 45 games for Valencia - and another 31 in 45 the season before - plus a £34m move to Barcelona.

Klose, in contrast, limped into it after a series of injuries and just six goals in 38 outings for Bayern Munich.

The Polish-born forward, in and out of the side, managed just 27 minutes as a substitute in Bayern's 2-0 Champions League final defeat to Inter Milan.

FORM ... Spain's David Villa

But Low never lost faith in him. And now he's like a pig in shhhh-you-know-what. Low knew that here was a player - a modest, unassuming family man, far removed from all the glitz and excessive hype that surrounds some of our own Premier League "superstars" - who would deliver when the chips were down.

As he did in scoring the winner in Russia that ensured Germany, despite playing with 10 men for the last 21 minutes, topped a tough qualifying group.

And Klose, 32, is delivering again out here with four goals that takes his World Cup tally to 14 - level with the great Gerd Muller - and, incredibly, just one behind the record set by Brazil's Ronaldo.

His experience is also rubbing off on Thomas Muller, the 20-year-old who has gone from Bayern reserves to World Cup inside 18 months.

Muller misses tonight's semi-final through suspension. So, once again, the pressure is all on Klose.

Yes, that old word again. The one England players cannot cope with.

And let's look at that other statement of Ferguson's: That we will see a different Rooney in 2014.

Rooney will be 28 then, almost 29. And he will have yet to score a World Cup goal. Back in 2002, the 24-year-old Klose was scoring five to finish joint-second behind Ronaldo in Asia.

At Germany 2006, he won the Golden Boot with another five. And now he's got four more despite being suspended for one game.

This is a REAL player in a side that has become the first team to score four times in three matches at a World Cup since the mesmerising Brazil of 1970, widely regarded as the best team ever.

No wonder the words being used back home on Berlin's Party Mile are "unglaublich" (unbelievable) and "wahnsinn" (crazy).

And then there's our old favourite Vorsprung Durch Technik.

This is a team that plays with structure, technique, pace, width and, above all, a generosity of spirit.

The type that sees Bastian Schweinsteiger and Mesut Ozil make one selfless run after another and, rather than going for glory themselves, thread through the final pass to a man in a better position.

For England, it would have been another Hollywood effort flying high into the atmosphere.

And now it's Spain's turn to try to stop the Tournament Team.

Already it's been a good game of verbal shuttlecock - "you're favourites" countered by "we've won nothing yet".

As Schweinsteiger said: "If you look at it on paper, Spain are the better side. But we have some fresh faces and an unencumbered state of mind." <

Either something has been added in translation or the Germans are as intelligent as their football.

And then there's Villa replying: "We may have beaten them in the Euro 2008 final but you don't achieve anything in football until you have won the World Cup."

One footballing powerhouse, though, is already a winner - Barcelona.

The Spanish champions paid £34m for Villa, a player who's already 28.

This week outgoing Barca president Joan Laporta said: "If we had waited until after the World Cup it would have been another £20m."

And the loser? He's playing with his bucket and spade in Barbados.

Let's just hope he tunes in tonight as the sand shifts under his career. He will learn something.