REMEMBER THE TIME Robbie Keane broke into your house, spray-painted lewd graffiti on the walls, ate all the Corn Flakes, got your granny drunk and took your girlfriend for a joyride?
No?
How about the time he walked out on the Irish team to meet up with the lads to go disco dancing in Ayia Napa?
Or if that doesn’t ring any bells, maybe you’ll recall the tantrums, the training ground bust-ups, the missed friendly internationals, the assault allegations, the strike threats, the roastings, the missed drug tests, the spit spats and all the other events that haven’t composed the life of Ireland’s own answer to Pol Pot.
I just don’t get why Robbie Keane is not lauded as Ireland’s greatest player, or at least on a par with Paul McGrath, Liam Brady, Roy Keane, John Giles.
The statistics are oft-repeated.
Keane has scored 54 goals – 33 more than Niall Quinn, a distant second on the all-time scorers’ list – in 122 international games. He lies just three games short of Shay Given’s record haul, and will surpass it. He was Ireland’s record goalscorer at the 2002 World Cup, and has scored away against Germans, the Dutch and the French.
Detractors claim he’s a flat track bully, only scoring against mediocre opposition or in ‘meaningless friendlies,’ but 34 of his 54 strikes have come outside of non-competitive matches and Nations Cup games.
He has done it when it mattered.
So, what is it?
The goal celebration?
Eric Cantona used to stand, collar up, scowling at his Manchester United audience and remains one of that club’s, nay football’s, great icons. Gareth Bale’s loveheart affectation is nauseating in the extreme, but you’d be hard pressed to find a more heartily praised player in the Premier League.
Is it Keane’s litany of clubs? The cumulative transfer fees?
Never mind that he has never been responsible for the money paid for his services, bear in mind that Kevin Kilbane – our ‘Killer’ – numbers nine clubs in his career to Keane’s ten.
To accusations that he has never stuck around anywhere long enough to build an affinity with any set of fans, look at his first spell with Spurs.
Look at his reasons for leaving Inter Milan (Marcello Lippi was sacked), Leeds (financial meltdown), Liverpool (barely given a chance). Nowhere can Keane be accused of running down a contract, refusing to go out on loan or refusing to play.
Could it be the ‘favourite club while growing up’ thing?
The myth goes that Keane has said this about every club he’s played for in the last five years, the truth being that he only claimed it for Liverpool and for Glasgow Celtic.
Well, same here, and same for many young lads growing up in Ireland in the 1980s and 1990s, the difference being that this writer couldn’t kick snow off a rope.
Yes, he said it was a “dream come true” to join LA Galaxy from Spurs, but show me a 30-year-old that wouldn’t fancy a move to Hollywood, the good weather, the chance of bumping into Jeremy Piven in the street, the bit of adulation.
Is he just a bit too cocky?
Well, that Kevin Doyle does seem like a lovely fella by comparison. How’s he getting on?
The conclusion can only be begrudgery, that standard Irish thing, that revulsion at success and Keane’s failure to apologise for it. The sheer cheek of his talent and steadfast refusal to throw it all away. We just love a fallen idol, but we’ll greet one of the most committed and loyal of all of Ireland’s players with a loud and resounding ‘meh.’
And still expect him to turn up.
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