Robbie Keane will become Ireland’s record caps-holder when he leads the Boys in Green out against the Faroes tonight and to mark the occasion, we took a look back at his distinguished career in numbers.
126 – The number of international caps Robbie will have after tonight’s clash with the Faroes at the Aviva. Disappointingly, it is a figure which puts Keane at only 52nd on the all-time list alongside esteemed contemporaries such as Paolo Maldini, Gianluigi Buffon and Miroslav Klose. If Keane goes on for five or six years, then the 184 appearances made by Egypt’s Ahmed Hassan will surely be within his sights.
56 – The number of international goals scored by Keane, which puts him at joint 20th on the all-time list alongside the great Gabriel Batistuta of Argentina and Carlos Pavon of Honduras. It would take a hat-trick tonight for Robbie to move up just one place in the list, while he’ll need another 53 to match the ridiculous record of Iran’s Ali Daei, who scored 109 goals in 149 international games.
238 – The highest number of appearances Keane has made for one club (Tottenham Hotspur). He has played more games for Ireland than any of the other clubs he played for throughout his career and hasn’t made more than 100 appearances for any club apart from Spurs.
17, 8 and 17 – Robbie’s age in years, months and days when he made his Ireland debut in a friendly against Czech Republic in Olomuoc on March 25, 1998.
5 – The number of games it took Robbie to score his first Ireland goal, against Malta in Dublin in 1998 in the qualifying campaign for Euro 2000. He bagged his second on the same night in a 5-0 win.
92 – The number of minutes that had passed in Ibaraki on the night of arguably Keane’s most famous goal for Ireland against Germany in the 2002 World Cup.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzYUJJkk5Lg
7 – The number of competitive games Keane has gone without scoring from open play for Ireland.
34 – The number of countries Keane has scored against throughout his international career. If you must know, they are *pauses for breath* Malta, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Czech Republic, Holland, Iran, Russia, Denmark, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Finland, Albania, Georgia, Canada, Cyprus, Faroe Islands, Croatia, Israel, Sweden, San Marino, Wales, Columbia, Norway, Italy, Nigeria, France, Algeria, Andorra, Macedonia, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Estonia and Kazakhstan.
£72,000,000 – The approximate amount of money Keane has commanded in transfer fees throughout his career after moves to Wolves, Coventry, Inter Milan, Leeds, Spurs, Liverpool, Spurs again and the LA Galaxy throughout his career.
$4,333,333 – The amount of money Keane apparently earns in a year playing for the LA Galaxy, second only to Thierry Henry in the MLS.
14 – In and around the number of hours Keane would have spent on a plane in order to play for Ireland against England in Wembley last week. Cynics suggested it was also the number of touches of the ball he managed during that game.
3:36 – The number of minutes and seconds Robbie spent murdering ‘The Green Fields of France’ in a sing-song in Gibney’s Malahide that surfaced on YouTube a couple of years back.
Just joking Robbie, it was a solid seven out of ten at least.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UioaOPmDaw
