Robbie Keane’s cartwheel celebration is woven into the fabric of Ireland's sporting culture. From Ibaraki to Lansdowne Road, the famous celebration has shown up at some of Ireland's greatest moments.
But, in actuality, it is something which Keane is embarrassed about.
Speaking on the BBC’s Match of The Day Podcast with Gary Lineker, Keane explained that he was actually embarrassed to watch his cartwheels back, even going as far as to get analysts at Spurs to remove it from the footage shown at post-match meetings:
I hate watching that.
We used to play the games at Tottenham or wherever and I used to go into the analysis guy before and say the manager on Monday will show the game and show the goal if I scored.
I used to go in before anyone else and 'say take my celebration out, do not put my celebration in'.
When asked why he continued to do the celebration if he hated it so much Keane responded by explaining that once he scored everything changed:
As soon as I scored everything changed before I go out I say I'm not going to do that.
But then as soon as you score as you know it's like everything completely changes you forget what's around you and you just go off on a mad on.
Thankfully Robbie allowed his embarrassment to win and kept doing those cartwheels. We certainly wouldn't mind having them back in the current Irish team.
