Do FAI know if Keane is a decent coach?
Confusion about former striker’s role shows few lessons have been learned
THROUGH the thickets of confusion, we have happened upon the occasional clearance filled with insight. Navigating the new landscape in Irish soccer has been testing. Doubts remain about how clearly defined the pathways are between the Mick McCarthy and Stephen Kenny regimes, and between the underage ranks for which Kenny now takes responsibility, and the senior team.
Nobody can know how effectively the many moving parts will align, despite the effusive optimism of the FAI.
Ruud Dokter, the high performance director with the association, provided the most convincing official commentary on the future of Irish soccer.
He recognised that the model in which young Irish talent is trusted for its professional refinement to the ruthless, expansive English club game no longer works.
Dokter encouraged aspiring Irish stars to look for opportunities at continental clubs and it will require ideas like that to reboot the national side.
No matter how inspiring McCarthy proves, or how comprehensively Kenny dismisses the understandable questions about his ability to manage at senor international level, the manager of the Ireland side will depend on better players emerging.
The clarity provided by Dokter was only fleeting relief in a week where questions abounded and answers were scarcer.
The pitch was queered, too, by the retirement of Robbie Keane. This was merely official recognition of an existing reality, but it did give people a chance to reflect on one of the great careers in Irish colours.
Tributes were rich and plentiful, and as is the way in such matters, Keane was decorated with garlands that were only rarely offered when he was a player.
He became an odd target of disaffection in his later career. There were aspects of the game in which he was plainly limited, but it was as if his shortcomings not only obscured his scoring talent, but were an insurmountable handicap for the entire team.
This became especially marked at Euro 2012, when Keane was relentlessly criticised. Ireland’s failing there, of course, was the responsibility of Giovanni Trapattoni. The Italian learned, at last, that modern football could not be survived with just two players in midfield.
Despite the tireless scrutiny he was under, Keane was not Ireland’s problem at those championships, or thereafter.
In the Martin O’Neill years, Keane became near-mythologised by the manager as the natural scorer the team sorely required.
No matter how tiresome it became, there was always a kernel of truth in what O’Neill said.
Ireland really could have done with Robbie Keane the goal-scorer – and could do still. But whether they need Robbie Keane the greenhorn coach is questionable.
His inclusion in McCarthy’s management team was another contributor to the current confusion.
What we know for sure is that Keane has been included because he contacted the newly appointed manager and told him he wanted to be a part of his team.
This drew a salty comment from McCarthy at his unveiling. Later in that press conference, he said that Keane should be part of the Kenny succession.
But is he going to be any good?
That question does not seem to have been a point of serious deliberation for anyone connected with the process. It should have been, because it’s not as if we need to ransack distant memory for evidence of what happens when a high-profile player is absorbed into the management of the Irish side.
Robbie Keane seems a less intense figure than his famous namesake Roy, but it wasn’t just the outbursts of the latter that proved troubling. As Matt Doherty revealed through his pauses and uncertainty in an interview after the departure of the previous management team, Keane’s role within the O’Neill design was not at all clear.
Doherty’s comments corroborated rumours that had been in circulation for years. Many players were uncertain about Keane’s role.
If he was designated as a general inspiration, it did not have much effect on a struggling group.
McCarthy may well have clearer plans for Robbie Keane, and there will be room for coaching input given the new manager does not have the extensive coaching team O’Neill did.
Keane’s ability to fulfil such duties is not guaranteed, though. He has completed UEFA’s coaching courses, but the practical application of the theory has stumped many ambitious ex-players over the years.
If he does take to his new role, then Keane could be subsumed into the succession strategy somewhere behind Kenny. But that remains unknowable for now.
It is another issue lost in the uncertainty surrounding Irish soccer. On we stumble, then, into a future where triumph or disaster or continuing dreariness may lurk.