Robbie Keane's 65 goals for the Republic of Ireland leaves him third on a list of Europe's all-time leading national goalscorers published by Uefa. The Dubliner trails only Ferenc Puskas of Hungary and Miroslav Klose of Germany.
The list was ostensibly produced to mark the anniversary of Bernard Voorhoof scoring his 30th goal for Belgium on March 17th, 1940 but is rather timely for Keane given the more celebrated significance of the date.
The 34-year-old is the only one of the top three still playing for his country and while Puskas’ tally of 84 looks somewhat beyond him, the LA Galaxy striker might just see himself as having a shot at overtaking Klose who went out on a high with 71 goals to his name last summer after helping the Germans win the World Cup.
Some of the entries on the list will bring back painful memories for Irish supporters with Thierry Henry (51), David Silva (59) and Michalis Konstantinou, for instance, inflicting misery in one way or another on the Irish in a World Cup play-off, Euro 2012 finals game, and humiliating away qualifying defeat respectively but there is little doubting the quality of the company Keane is in. Bobby Charlton (49) leads the list for England, Cristiano Ronaldo (52) for Portugal and Ukraine's Andriy Shevchenko (48) there too.
Northern Ireland
David Healy
is top of the pile on 36 for Northern Ireland while
Ian Rush
(28) holds the record for Wales, and
Denis Law
and
Kenny Dalglish
(30 goals apiece) share it for Scotland.
Keane is, of course, in the Ireland squad for the European championship qualifier against Poland on March 29th when the hope will be he’ll edge closer to Klose. In these parts, though, his tally is unlikely to be rivalled for quite some time.
The full list can be found on uefa.com
