“These are the games that any player worth his salt wants to play in,” enthused Martin O’Neill after the Irish squad had a dusk walkabout at the Veltins Arena in Gelsenkirchen, in the heart of the heart of German football country.
Beside O'Neill sat Robbie Keane, Ireland's captain, fresh from branding another another hat-trick into the record books. Keane's salt-worthiness has been abundantly evident since he was a cocksure youngster who fast tracked it from Tallaght to Milan and given that he has tapped into another rich goalscoring seam, he is surely a cert' to start against the Germans.
O’Neill, though, urged caution.
“I wouldn’t assume anything at the moment . . . Robbie has been a splendid player for quite some. He is up there now, that is his third hat-trick which is really terrific. He was captain when I came in and I didn’t see any reason to change it. He is a very, very fine player and as my assistant manager mentioned, I think, our best goalscorer. We will have a chat . . . I haven’t picked the team yet but he is standing here because he is our captain and an excellent influence on the squad.”
If that was a prelude to what would be a startling omission, it was as handsome as they come. Keane, for his part, played the loyal lieutenant, batting back a request to predict if and how the German back four might leave chinks of floodlight open for him to exploit.
“Well, the manager hasn’t named the team and regardless of how often you play, you respect the manager’s decision. So if that is the case, you just do your job and my job is to score goals and to contribute to the team. But you don’t go into any game, certainly as a striker, thinking you can’t get at them. In any game you think you can score a goal and you have to believe that regardless of who you are playing against.”
Keane has encountered myriad defences during his long career but to switch from the the part-time Gibraltan back four he destroyed in under 20 minutes to operating by himself up front against the new world champions, represents extreme ends of the spectrum.
Despite all of those who auditioned alongside him, nobody has really displaced the Dubliner as the striker most likely to filch a goal against the run of play and against intimidating opposition.
Germany were the opposition when Keane scored one of those Irish goals which stay sharp in the mind; that stretching, heavyweight strike at the 2002 World Cup finals.
That goal registered with the Germans: he was the only player to score against them in the tournament until Ronaldo’s brace for Brazil in the final.
Keane’s name carries weight in Europe’s most celebrated football houses. But that goal was at the beginning of Keane’s career. Sixty five strikes in, he is still as avaricious as ever, loitering among the all-time crowd and quick to dismiss Ireland’s more recent, painful encounters against Germany. Keane was absent for the last two matches, including that excruciating 6-1 defeat in Dublin. But he was quick to wave that occasion off as irrelevant now.
“To be honest, I don’t think the players are thinking too much about what happened in the past. We have to concentrate on what we are doing now. We are certainly a different team from we were a few years ago. We haven’t been mentioning it. And we shouldn’t be: it is a different game. We are on a good run and have a lot of confidence as the manager said.”
But there is no question that after what seemed like an interminable run of friendly games, Ireland have reached the first critical hurdle of the Martin O'Neill era.
Gelsenkirchen is a subdued city in midweek but the visit of the national team has sent a voltage of anticipation through the suburbs. They want to welcome the new world champions – and help the Germans recover from the stunning defeat to Poland. It promises to be a daunting experience for the Irish team and makes Keane’s big game experience –and temperament – all the more vital.
“These games, you have to go and enjoy it,” he says of the advice he will offer his younger team mates.
“You have seen the stadium there and it is fantastic. These are the games that any player would want to be involved in. So go out and enjoy it – you are playing one of the best teams in the world, the World Cup champions. As long as you know what your jobs are, go out and give it a go. We have players in this squad who are comfortable in what they are doing at club level so we can bring that to the international stage no question. We feel we are playing with a lot of confidence at the moment. It is going to be difficult, no question. But we have a lot of confidence at the moment.”
