Sunset Strip better for Keane than bench down at the Lane

KEANE for LA Galaxy? If it comes to pass, we can expect to be deluged with Posh ‘n’ Becks comparisons, as Robbie and Claudine set up home on the West Coast.

But how life on the Sunset Strip impacts on life in the Irish strip will be of more concern to football folk as the skipper and record goalscorer makes the most sensational — and, one presumes, final — move of a have-boots-will-travel career.

Only this week, as he prepared to lead Ireland out against Croatia, the Dubliner was hinting heavily that his time at Spurs was finally up. That had most of his audience pondering a short hop, skip and jump to Leicester or Wolves or West Brom rather than a transatlantic odyssey.

Actually, the link with David Beckham’s team had first surfaced at least well over a year ago, back when Keane was completing a loan spell at Celtic and, not for the first time, facing into an uncertain future as spare man at Spurs.

But the latest news, if confirmed, still comes as a shock to the system. When Keane also said this week that he was not contemplating a drop down into the Championship, the logical conclusion was that he still regarded himself — and with no little justification considering his international form — as a top-flight striker.

But the MLS, for all its development over recent years, scarcely fits that bill, no matter that the apparent fall in standards would be eased by a lavish financial cushion. The fact that the American league ends in October will also raise questions about what Robbie will do at that point. Presumably, like Becks, he will then be on the look-out for a loan deal to keep himself in peak condition.

Much will be made of the distance between Los Angeles and Dublin, especially come the big international weeks, but in the modern age that’s really beside the point. The Anglocentric view of football in this part of the world tends to overlook the fact that Brazilians and Argentinians and Mexicans have happily made their living in Britain and Europe without the travel complications involved impacting negatively on their service to the national cause.

Giovanni Trapattoni’s take on the move will be interesting but I suspect that it would take more than a spot of globetrotting to dampen his faith in his leader of the line and leader on the pitch.

Doubtless Keane will be criticised by some as a gold-digger but then he has never been one to go out of his way to court the popular vote. More to the point, he has tended to answer his critics in the best possible way — on the pitch.

He continues to prove his value to Ireland. Even in last Wednesday’s far from lively scoreless draw against Croatia, he was, as ever, one of the most animated figures on the pitch.

He even played the entire 90 minutes. Confounding predictions of doom has been a hallmark of Keane’s, especially in the latter stages of a long career.

Certainly, it seems unthinkable that Robbie Keane will not see out the current European Championship campaign as skipper and first-choice striker, though a move to the States would surely be a factor in any decision he has to make about a longer-term international future after the Euro campaign ends.

In the meantime, probably the most positive thing you can say about his reported move to LA is that playing regularly is far preferable to warming the bench, even if it is in a galaxy far, far away.