It's common knowledge that Robbie Keane can't do anything of note - like popping down to the shops or filling his car with petrol - without someone wondering aloud whether he fantasised about doing it as a child.
Listening to all the snarky commentary, one is inclined to wonder whether Keane got any schoolwork done with all this extensive and impressively detailed daydreaming going on.
But is this fair? Just how often has Robbie used the phrase 'boyhood dream' in press conferences flanked by his new employers?
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How often did Robbie Keane say a new club was a dream come true?
According to the internet, he has only used the phrase 'boyhood dream', 'lifelong dream' or 'dream come true' or some other variation thereof twice on joining a new club. On another occasion, he said 'he always wanted to play for' the club he had just joined.
But what were these clubs?
Well, he did use the phrase 'lifelong dream' upon joining Liverpool. Spurs chairman Daniel Levy was not best pleased with Keane's move, and the Irishman attempted to placate Levy in his first interview as a Liverpool player - an interview where we got our first insight into the childhood dreams of the striker:
I would specifically like to thank chairman Daniel Levy for understanding, that, as a fan, joining Liverpool is a lifelong dream of mine and one I couldn't let pass me by. I hope one day the Spurs fans, who have been brilliant to me, can understand this too.
Two years later, he declared, upon joining Celtic, that they were a club he had "always wanted to play for." Interestingly, then-Spurs manager Harry Redknapp was the man who declared Keane's move to Celtic to be a "dream come true."
A Dubliner declares that playing for Liverpool and Celtic both constituted the realisation of a dream. It does not seem especially implausible.
July 2008 when Liverpool signed Robbie Keane
Shame it didn’t work out, always rated the player, thought he was class pic.twitter.com/uOYmp7kI2C— SECTION 128 (@BradYNWA6) November 2, 2021
Then it does get awkward. He did tell the assembled press corps that was a 'dream come true' to play for in the MLS. This would be a highly idiosyncratic daydream for a boy from Tallaght who was born in 1980 to have, not least because the MLS was founded in 1993.
I am delighted, honoured and very excited to be joining the LA Galaxy.
I have always wanted to come and play in MLS so it's the perfect combination for me and a dream come true.
It was this last declaration that appears to have kick-started the running joke.
He was merely 'delighted' to have joined Inter and impressed with the long-term plans of Glenn Hoddle at Spurs. He was relatively subdued after joining Leeds. Keane did not seem to have childhood dreams of joining Aston Villa on loan, nor West Ham.
He does like to affect happiness when joining a new club. He has never worn an Emmanuel Frimpong-style puss on him upon joining a new club.
This article was originally written by Conor Neville in 2015
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