Sports Digest: Robbie Keane faces LA Galaxy v Ireland clash

Robbie Keane will be asked to choose between World Cup revenge in New York and Ireland’s European Championship dream next month.

Robbie Keane will be asked to choose between World Cup revenge in New York and Ireland’s European Championship dream next month.

The Irish captain faces his first club vs. country crisis ahead of the final euro qualifiers against Andorra and Armenia in October.

The LA Galaxy are demanding that Keane be available for the re-arranged MLS clash with Thierry Henry’s Red Bulls in New York on Tuesday, October 4.

That game will be played 48 hours after the Irish squad meet up in Dublin and just 72 hours before Ireland kick-off away to Andorra.

Irish boss Giovanni Trapattoni is aware of Keane’s dilemma but won’t invoke the FIFA five day rule to force his captain out of the Red Bulls fixture, re-arranged from last month due to Hurricane Irene.

“I will leave the decision to Robbie Keane,” a diplomatic Trapattoni told the Daily Star.

“I will put him in the position to make the call himself. Robbie told me when he went to America that he will always answer the call.

“He always wants to play for his country. I will let him decide what he does that week.

“If he plays the game in America, I will get the DVD sent to us and see how he does. Then I will ask him how he feels about playing in Andorra.

“It is up to him. When he comes to us we will see if he is fresh or not but it will be his decision.”

Meanwhile, Trapattoni has vowed to avoid a Jack Charlton-style fall down a mountain when Ireland attempt to scale the European Championship heights next month.

Charlton paid a heavy price when his Irish team could only draw 0-0 away to Liechtenstein in the Euro ’96 qualifiers before bowing out in the playoff to Holland in the game that cost Big Jack his job.

Trapattoni’s side are now just two wins away from a guaranteed place in the Euro 2012 playoffs after last week’s heroic rearguard action in the scoreless draw in Moscow.

A win in Andorra and a home victory against Armenia at the start of October could even earn Trap’s team automatic qualification if Slovakia beat Russia in Zilina.
Irish fans are already taking the three points from Andorra’s tiny 1,800 capacity ground for granted, but Trapattoni knows well that Charlton’s lot famously “drew with the side of a mountain” as one pundit put it back in June, 1995.

“We cannot take anything for granted in Andorra and we will not,” said Trapattoni as his team looks to make it eight clean sheets in a row in the tiny principality next month.

“I have been in this situation many, many times in the past when you have to go and play at a small ground and with only a few of your fans there.

“But we have the experience now to cope with this. My players have been to Montenegro and to Moscow when the crowd and the atmosphere has been difficult for us.

“It was difficult in the last World Cup group when we had to go to play Georgia in Germany because of the war there. We will cope with this.

“Our players have enough experience playing in the Champions League and the Europa League to know what to do.

​
Nster.com