'El Capitan' will be right up there with the greatest Irish players of all-time if he delivers on the Euro 2012 stage next month, writes EMMET MALONE

HE SOMEHOW seemed an unlikely international captain when he made his mark at the 2002 World Cup but these days Robbie Keane gives the impression of having grown into the role a little more each time he takes to the stage alongside Giovanni Trapattoni for pre-match press conferences.

Yesterday’s setting, a Ford showroom a mile or so up the road from the team hotel, wasn’t the easiest in which to look commanding but “El Capitan”, as Trapattoni refers to him, clearly takes this part of the role seriously and carries himself through such events with plenty of confidence.

It’s been a turbulent journey at times since he started to make his name at Wolves and one that he hasn’t always seemed to be entirely in control of. Having settled well enough into the MLS, however, Poland is the only priority now and he seems happy as he prepares to lead the Republic of Ireland team from the front.

“My job is to do that,” he says. “There is always responsibility on the captain, especially when a team is away for so long. There are going to be times when a few of the lads are down, when there are little niggles in training with players, the sort of stuff that’s normal when you’re stuck in a hotel for a long, long time.

“It’s up to me as captain or even just as a senior player, as soon as there is any negativity around the camp, to nip it in the bud straight away. Although,” he adds, “as a captain you can’t carry the whole team. First and foremost you have to make sure you’re doing your job and I’ll be doing that.”

That, first and foremost, is certainly what most Irish supporters will judge the 31-year-old on over the next few weeks. On the face of it the scale of his contribution to the team in the 14 years since he was first capped against the Czech Republic is beyond question and yet his exact standing amongst the fans has been the subject of lively discussion throughout most of his career.

His three goals in Japan and South Korea marked him out as one of the individual success stories of that World Cup with only five players, three of whom were involved in the tournament for significantly longer, outscoring him. But in the years immediately afterwards he often came in for criticism from those who felt he did not score often enough in Ireland’s bigger games.

The former Leeds and Tottenham Hotspur striker might reasonably point to the number of times he has been Ireland’s leading scorer in qualification campaigns – five in seven attempts – and being handed the captain’s armband by Trapattoni seemed to inspire one of his best as he led the side to the brink of qualification for the last World Cup, scoring against both Italy and France along the way.

Around the same time, his move to Liverpool seemed to promise a higher level of recognition on the club front but it ended up instead marking a major turn for the worse in terms of his Premier League career. He was, many would feel, an innocent victim of the fact that the team was set up to suit others and its manager, Rafa Benitez, was embroiled in power games with his bosses. What mattered, though, was that he was left with little option but to move on.

The story goes that his relationship with Harry Redknapp was then irrevocably soured back at White Hart lane when the manager not only left him out of his squad for an away game but forgot to tell him, with the result that the Dubliner turned up but didn’t get to board the team bus.

Subsequent loan spells were a mixed bag although he certainly left Celtic and, more recently, Aston Villa on good terms. It could be argued that his two goals in Villa’s 3-2 win over Wolves kept the club up for if they’d finished the season with three fewer points they’d have been one behind relegated Bolton Wanderers.

By then, however, the move to Los Angeles was proving rewarding with the player contributing a significant amount to the club’s championship success – figures released only yesterday by the players’ union confirm his guaranteed salary for 2012 at €2.72 million.

He had yet to find his best form in the early weeks of the new season and missed the club’s last game with a minor hamstring problem but heads to Poland looking to show that the pressure of quick-fire games on one of the sport’s very biggest stages is still to his liking. “Yeah, I’ve been like that through my whole career,” he insists. “I enjoy that Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday thing. I feel a lot sharper when I play a lot of games on the bounce. Hopefully that will be the case again at these championships.”

Whether he can get through the pre-tournament games, and then a schedule of high-intensity competitive games against strong opponents, remains to be seen, but there is little doubt how important he could be over the next few weeks.

Almost every manager he has played for has found reasons to get excited about the things the Irishman can bring to a team, none more so than Martin Jol who argued that the player’s timing and instincts around the area marked him out as one of the game’s very best.

Trapattoni, of course, talks his “capitan” up all the time, comparing him enthusiastically to greats like Michel Platini and Zbigniew Boniek. It may be stretching things to put him in that sort of company but if he makes anything like the impact he made at the World Cup 10 years, and somehow manages to lead this Irish team to the quarter-finals or beyond, Keane can stake a claim to top spot in the list of all-time Irish greats.