Sorry Harry, Robbie is not in the running for Ireland job
WHEN Harry Redknapp championed Robbie Keane for the Ireland job, it was with a characteristic flood of enthusiasm – and an equally recognisable dearth of detail.
Redknapp is an emotional figure, a man able to gush freely about a game or a player, which is why he has been so popular with the press throughout his management career, and now in retirement.
So he told 2FM’s Game On about Keane’s endeavour as a player, that Keane was a great guy and that everyone loved him.
That last point was not the only example of loose detail in Harry’s delivery, but it was one of the most telling.
Popularity is not a condition that Keane has always shown an interest in pursuing, and it’s just as well, because a man who should be a national treasure has, instead, attracted equivocation among many in our nation of supposed sports lovers.
This has been a fact throughout his career, attributed at various times to his demeanour, his effectiveness in the national side, and towards the end of his playing years, to his declining prowess.
It is laughable now that a proven talent at the higher levels of the Premier League once caused pundits and supporters here to argue about his worth in the side. This was partly the result of better squads in the 2000s, when there was more competition for places, but even then Keane was the standout scorer of his generation.
But the truth is there was no amount of goals that would have won over Keane’s critics. They were a stubborn cohort whose position seemed rooted in issues of personality rather than sporting effectiveness.
His 68 goals for Ireland are 47 clear of next-placed Niall Quinn, and they came in 146 appearances for his country. That’s a record of almost a goal every two games, and the old sniffiness that he could be counted on to hit the net against weaker opponents has been reduced by time to another punchline – even the minnows pose insoluble puzzles for Ireland now.
His brief time assisting Mick McCarthy and the needlessly messy saga around his contract following the accession of Stephen Kenny were complications, too, but on the latter point Keane was harangued for simply observing the terms of his contract.
He vacated the affections of more when, last June, he agreed to become the manager of Maccabi Tel Aviv.
To the legions of critics of Israel in this country before the current horrors in Gaza, this was an affront. He was excoriated on social media, including by politicians, but since the Hamas attacks on Israel in October, and the relentless, brutal response it drew, the criticism has grown more intense.
Mary Lou McDonald told The Examiner last month that ‘sport and genocide shouldn’t mix’. ‘I think leaders have to lead in times like this and I think sporting people, sporting heroes, have such an influence and such a reach,’ she said.
Demanding sports people serve as role models is an old and vacuous gambit, but it’s easy pickings for a politician and guarantees a day of handy headlines.
Keane is managing a club which has not been excluded from UEFA competition, and which is leading the league in a country that, for all
He’s working in a legitimate league, not some despotic backwater
the reservations people may have, is recognised as a functioning democracy.
In choosing to take the job he did last summer, Keane must have expected criticism, but however much it causes anger in some constituencies here, he is working in a legitimate league, not some despotic backwater.
Its critics brand Israel’s an apartheid regime, which draws instant comparisons with South Africa.
If there are clear and drastic differences between it and that dreadful order – and they are most obviously illustrated by the Hamas terrorism that plunged the region into its current nightmare – it is a popular accusation that opens another avenue of criticism on Keane.
He was evacuated from the country in the aftermath of those attacks, but returned to resume an excellent job.
The club are five points clear at the top of the league, having lost just one of their 15 matches so far this season.
They are also through to the knock-out stages of the Europa Conference League.
It has been suggested that Keane has ambitions to manage Ireland, but it would be a huge risk by the FAI to take a chance on a manager still untested, whatever Harry Redknapp might say.
It would not be in Keane’s interests now, either, given his career in management is at such an early stage, and given the stirrings of an old, peculiar unease.