Posts Tagged ‘Robbie Keane’

Keane back for the Irish

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010

Robbie KeaneRepublic of Ireland captain Robbie Keane has rejoined his country’s squad for Tuesday’s international friendly against Brazil at Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium.

The Tottenham forward, on loan at Celtic, withdrew on Sunday after aggravating a knee injury in the Hoops’ 1-0 Old Firm derby defeat by Rangers. However, the striker underwent an additional medical examination on Monday and has now been allowed to rejoin the squad, according to a report on the Football Association of Ireland’s website. Republic manager Giovanni Trapattoni has yet to decide if Keane will start.

Earlier on Monday, the Italian announced Leon Best as Keane’s replacement to partner Wolves striker Kevin Doyle up front against five-times FIFA World Cup™ winners Brazil. Keane, the Republic’s record goalscorer with 41, is looking to win his 96th cap while Shay Given and Kevin Kilbane are set to extend their joint record to 103 international appearances.

Trapattoni, who is now looking towards the Republic’s qualifying campaign for the 2012 UEFA EURO, which gets underway later this year, said: “It will be important for us to play with the same mentality and performance as we did against France and Italy. But we will need more attention, because Brazil are a great team – every player can score a goal, they have so many creative and technical players.

“We will prepare with 100 per cent attention and be compact, because we must not only press them, we can also not let such great players like Kaka have too much space. We need to be compact, every player must help his team-mate, be organised. If we play with the order like we did against Italy and France, then we can do it against Brazil.”

Young gun
Wigan teenager James McCarthy could have the thrill of making his international debut against Brazil. The 19-year-old has impressed veteran manager Trapattoni. “McCarthy can play behind the strikers, sometimes left or sometimes on the right,” he said.

“James is a good young player, and in the future his manager can decide which position is better for him. At the moment, he is still searching for his position. In Italy it is the same as Ireland – where there is a young player with big potential, everybody has great expectations. Only Pele, (Diego) Maradona and (Johan) Cruyff were stars at 19 – everyone must grow and develop, with personality, slowly, slowly, step by step.”

Tuesday’s game is the first of four warm-up matches ahead of the qualifiers, where the Republic will play UEFA EURO 2008 semi-finalists Russia, 2010 FIFA World Cup finals qualifier Slovakia, Macedonia, Armenia and Andorra.