Ireland’s captain and all-time top goal-scorer Robbie Keane is headed for California after signing a two-year contract Monday for Major League Soccer club Los Angeles Galaxy.
It will be the ninth club he’s played for since breaking into the Wolverhamton Wanderers first team at age 17 in 1997. The Dubliner’s most successful time as a pro was between 2002 and 2008 with Tottenham Hotspur, for whom he made 197 appearances and scored 80 goals. He is the tenth top scorer in the English Premiership’s 19-year history, though he also had spells with Internazionale in Milan and Celtic in Glasgow.
“He can be an excellent addition to our club,” Galaxy coach Bruce Arena said. “We’re not as clean as we want to be in the last part of the field, not as dangerous, not as multidimensional as we need to be. We’d been looking to see if we could find another player we could add to the roster that has those qualities.
“He’s an experienced player, a proven player at the club and international level and is at an age where he can still have many productive years ahead of him,” said Arena, a former U.S. team coach.
Said Keane, who has scored 51 times in 109 games for the Republic: “I am delighted, honored and very excited to be joining the LA Galaxy.
“I have already discussed football with Bruce Arena and I know exactly what he wants from me,” he added.
“My family and I have already been made to feel very welcome in telephone calls from [CEO] Tim Leiweke and Bruce Arena.
“Also [when] David Beckham came and trained at Spurs recently, he couldn’t speak highly enough about the Galaxy, their fans and the league in general, so I can’t wait to get over and get started,” the Dublin man said.
Keane left Spurs for Liverpool in July 2008 for a transfer fee of £19 million, but returned the following February. He was loaned subsequently to Celtic in 2010 and to West Ham this year. Earlier in his career he also had a successful stint with Coventry City and a not so happy time at Leeds United.
His best remembered goals for Ireland are his last-ditch equalizer against Germany in the 2002 World Cup tournament held in Korea and Japan. It came against the backdrop of Irish soccer’s biggest controversy to that point: his namesake Roy Keane’s abandoning the squad, and his subsequent return and expulsion. It was the only goal scored against the European powerhouse in the tournament before Ronaldo’s brace won the cup for Brazil in the final.
The second was the opening goal against France in Paris in the 2nd leg of the World Cup qualifying playoff in the fall of 2009. Thierry Henry made world headlines by scoring with the aid of his hand in the dying moments, ending Ireland’s dreams of going to South Africa the following summer.
In coming weeks, Keane faces a long journey from the West Coast for two crucial European Championship qualifiers: the home game against Slovakia, on Friday, Sept. 2, and the game against Russia at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow the following Tuesday, Sept. 6.
