With less than 48 hours to go until Ireland's crucial World Cup qualifier with Wales at the Aviva Stadium, FAI Hall of Fame inductee Robbie Keane returned to the ground he loved most.
Keane was on hand with Irish football sponsors Three to unveil their new #TheCallUp campaign, which aims to unite the Irish team and fans and create the world’s largest squad on the road to Russia in two years' time.
He was tasked with recalling some of his finest moments as both an Ireland fan and player, and was clearly emotional on his first return to the dressing room since retiring from international football last August.
His reflection on his final ever appearance in the Irish shirt - who can forget that goal versus Oman? - was tough to watch, with Keane describing how his international career elapsed in a heartbeat, describing it as "my life."
He recalls his first international call-up somewhat more fondly, in a monologue which, when you see once more what his Irishness meant to him, will have you chomping at the bit ahead of another monumental game this Friday.
"To get the call up was, I mean... Even now, it's probably one of the proudest moments I ever had in football," Keane says.
Players that you look up to, big stars, and all of a sudden I'm sitting there with them in the dressing room. It's definitely surreal, but once you're in there, [you're thinking] I feel like I'm part of this.
Playing my first game here in the old Landsdowne against Argentina, my brothers were here who used to come to the games with me, my cousins, my uncle who was a steward still. So all these memories start flooding back to me, and I'm actually on the biggest stage in football.
Ortega's got man of the match, and then the whole stadium booed and started singing my name. The year before that, I was actually in the stand.
Keane, who scored 68 goals in 146 appearances for his country, also paid a glowing tribute to the fans, seemingly revealing that he had an eye or two on their gallivanting while in France last summer - or at least watched some of the visiting green army's viral videos retrospectively.
We have the best fans in the world. Changing one of the lads' wheels, singing to the baby on the train, fixing one of the lads' bonnets - putting money into the window for him. You just never see that. I've never seen any other fans do that, ever.
He concludes:
I'm looking forward to bringing my kids here, to show them that when I was a kid, this is what I did, you know? I always dreamt of putting that green jersey on. I played for many a club, many a jersey, but the one that always fitted best was the green jersey. Simple as that.
