Robbie Keane announced as manager of Israeli team Maccabi Tel Aviv

Irish football icon Robbie Keane has been announced as the manager of Israeli football team Maccabi Tel Aviv.

Keane, Ireland’s record goalscorer, has made the leap towards his first full managerial role following a spell as player-manager of India’s ATK in 2018.

In recent years, Keane has served as Mick McCarthy’s assistant manager in his second spell as Irish manager, and was most recently part of Sam Allardyce’s backroom staff amid their ill-fated attempt to stay in the Premier League.

Despite rumours linking him to the manager’s job at Portsmouth earlier this year, Keane will be in the dugout for Israeli side Maccabi Tel Aviv next season.

WELCOME COACH ??https://t.co/7tSMupLWvj pic.twitter.com/iN6b6hFIGj

— Maccabi Tel Aviv FC (@MaccabiTLVFC) June 26, 2023

Keane told the club’s website “I am happy to take on this challenge at Maccabi. My team and I are already looking forward to starting work and we are confident in our ability to do what is necessary to prepare the team for the upcoming season.”

Owner Mitch Goldhar said “Robbie brings with him the mentality, character, energy and the focus of a winner, qualities that he demonstrated everywhere he played. These characteristics combined with the ambitions to succeed.”

Keane’s storied career saw him bag over 100 goals in the Premier League, win the MLS league alongside David Beckham in 2011 and perhaps most famously secured a dramatic last-minute goal against Germany at the 2002 World Cup.

Keane scored 68 goals in 146 games for Ireland, bursting onto the scene in 1998 as the star of Ireland’s “golden generation” which contained the likes of Damien Duff and Shay Given, and playing his last game in Ireland in 2016.

Maccabi Tel Aviv will find themselves in the Europa Conference League qualifiers next month to last season’s third place league finish, with the side previously making the group stages of the Champions League in 2015.