Robbie Keane: Effort and fight

‘The match is always the same’

Testing his team against those with much bigger financial resources is something that Keane clearly relishes.

“The match is always the same. It’s clear to me, to the players, that it doesn’t matter who you play against, it’s 11 against 11. Just because the budget is different than your budget, that doesn’t mean that you can’t run more than they can run - you put the effort in more than they can.

“If you get beat by the better team, that’s fair enough, but at least try to compete at a high level.”

Keane admits that as a general rule he is a fan of a 4-3-3 formation – but he warns against any coach being too committed to any one style.

“Don’t be scared to change things,” he advises aspiring coaches. “Don’t just think, ‘I’ve got one way of playing’ and that’s it, because [if] you go into a team [and] you don’t have the players that can play that system, what do you do? Do you stick with it? Stick with your philosophy? What happens if you lose seven or eight games in a row? You’re gone, because you’re stubborn and you don’t want to change.

“I’ll change it if I need to change it.”

A new rule in Hungary last season also meant that Keane had to take into consideration the nationality of his players, because the number of foreign-born players on the pitch at any one time has been limited. Some of his Hungarian players, he says, were thus getting perhaps too many minutes, without a chance for rest – and others were running the risk of becoming complacent that their place in the side was assured.

“If you get beat by the better team, that’s fair enough, but at least try to compete at a high level”

“I do tell them a lot, ‘Don’t get comfortable. Please do not get comfortable because I’ll tell you, if you do, I’ll bring a young kid up and just play him ahead of you, because I need your performance to be here all the time,’” he says.

Coaching in different countries is something that does not faze Keane in the slightest. He says his experiences as a player at the highest level has helped him to understand different cultures and to settle in to a new place. That has also shaped his views on how players should be contributing to the environments in which they are working, and how they can support their coaching staff.

He points to his experience at LA Galaxy, recalling that he moved there after an invitation from David Beckham, who had been training with the Tottenham squad.

“Every country is different in terms of the mentality,” says Keane. He says that after ten days in Los Angeles, the team lost the first match that he was involved in – and he was shocked that his team-mates were laughing and joking in the dressing room immediately afterwards.

“I’m not here for a holiday. I’m here to win games. You can laugh and joke when you win. You don’t laugh and joke when we lose’”

“Usually you try and wait a little bit [before speaking up] when you go to a new club because you don’t want to be ‘that guy’, straight away getting on people, and you try and just fit in a little bit.

“But I could see where it was going in the training sessions and there wasn’t many people demanding off each other - and I just stood up and I went mental at a few of the guys that were laughing.

“I just told them, ‘I’m not here for a holiday. I’m here to win. Yes, you go back to your apartment in Hollywood or in Manhattan Beach, but you can laugh and joke when you win games. You don’t laugh and joke when we lose games.’

“And then from that moment I think they’ve seen, ‘Wow, this guy’s not messing about.’”

He says that the incident had an immediate impact on raising the standards in training sessions – and it all led to a more successful club, with the team winning the league three times during Keane’s spell there.

‘Players should run the dressing room’

He is, of course, quick to point out that the influx of players from other countries also changed the MLS mentality, highlighting the contributions of the likes of Thierry Henry, Andrea Pirlo, David Villa and Frank Lampard as well.

“You need leaders in the dressing room. The experienced players are the leaders of the dressing room, they run the dressing room, they should run the dressing room. Never should any problems ever go to the coach, until it’s a big problem and then you have to deal with it. When I was in the dressing rooms at Tottenham or at LA Galaxy, nothing would really get to the coach. I’d sort it out or the senior players - David [Beckham] or myself, at Tottenham at the time myself and Ledley King – we’d sort [a problem] before it even got to the manager. So the manager wouldn’t even know probably 95% of stuff that goes on.”

But that leadership also places extra demand on those experienced players; it is not simply a case of being vocal or supporting the younger squad members.

“If I’m one of the experienced players, one of the better players, the players have to see me being the hardest trainer, being there the first, I’m being the first one there, being the last one to leave.

“And what that does then on the younger players is it has an effect. So they say, ‘If he’s at the top and he’s doing this, what he’s eating, I’m going to do the same. Maybe I’m not probably as good as him, but if I put the effort in and fight the way that these leaders are fighting, then you can grow as a young player.’

“I’m big on helping young players no matter what - when I was playing, certainly now as a coach.

“It’s only going to improve the dressing room, and it’s only going to improve the team on the pitch and certainly off the pitch. Having that togetherness – yes, you’re going to have problems on the pitch…but as long as you walk off that white line after the training, then it’s finished. It doesn’t go back into the dressing room, it’s over.

“I’m big on helping young players no matter what - when I was playing, certainly now as a coach”

“That’s my philosophy now, even as a manager.”

And that extends to his coaching staff as well.

“If I’m preaching to my players to be together and have this togetherness, I have to show them as well that the coaching staff is the same. Once a month, I’ll take the coaching staff out - all of them, no matter who they are, the kitman, the physio, everybody. I take them out for dinner as a group…and it gives the trust.”

But Keane says that ultimately the head coach has to take charge – and although he appreciates the contributions and expertise of his coaching staff, the final responsibility for tactics, training and results lies with him as head coach. He adds that it’s important for players to get input from other voices, but the matchday instructions come from him.

“When it comes to the serious stuff, the stuff that I want from the players, [it] comes from me. That comes from me. I’m always the last guy they ever hear in the team meeting, always - and the last person they hear before they go on to the pitch.”