Weighing in with an impressive 68 goals, Robbie Keane is the Republic of Ireland's all time leading goal scorer having found the back of the net 68 times over his long career with the senior team, which starts when Robbie was a boy of just 17 years of age and ended almost twenty years later in August 2016. We could really do with another striker of Robbie's pedigree right now, but players like Robbie are once in a generation players. Here he is as a young lad, starting for Ireland and even though he looks around 12, he is actually 17 here!

Robbie quickly became a fan favorite and was known to score both spectacular and poachers goals. Robbie didn't care, he just wanted his name on the scoresheet no matter what, it didn't matter if it was a bicycle kick or a lucky deflection. Robbie went on to captain the team in later years and would have been the first name on the team sheet for most managers down through the years and he goal record and overall ability will tell you exactly why.

There are only twenty players in the history of world football who have scored more goals for their countries over the years and there are some seriously talented footballers on these lists as you'll see below. Something else to note also is that today there are even more international football games than there would have been back in Robbie's day with new things like the Nations League coming on stream in recent years.

It's just a pity that Robbie didn't bag another ten over the years to put him in the top ten, where he belongs in my opinion, but nonetheless, his achievement is something else, especially when you consider the 2nd, 3rd and 4th top scorers for Ireland have 19, 20 and 21 goals respectively for John Aldridge, Frank Stapleton and Niall Quinn respectively, as Ireland have never traditionally been a high scoring team. I can tell you one thing for sure and that is that Ireland's current manager Stephen Kenny would give his two front teeth to have a fit and young Robbie Keane in his team to score the goals, as that is the main weakness of the current Irish team - they don't score enough goals.

That's it from me.


Peace Out.