LA Galaxy captain Robbie Keane’s dreams of qualifying for the 2014 World Cup were effectively ended in Vienna on Tuesday when Ireland fell 1-0 to Austria on a late goal by Bayern Munich’s David Alaba.
The match was scoreless for 83 minutes with the Irish controlling wide stretches of the game, but Alaba found the back of the net with a right footed strike off a cross from Schalke 04's Christian Fuchs. Keane had an attempt to equalize in stoppage time, but his attempt went wide of the mark.
With the defeat, the Irish remain on 11 points while Austria move up to third place with 14 points just three points behind Sweden for second place in the group and a place in UEFA’s qualification playoffs. Due to the loss in Vienna and the long odds at qualification, the prevailing sentiment is that Irish manager Giovanni Trapattoni will be removed from his position just a year after leading Ireland to their UEFA Euro 2012—their first major tournament in 10 years.
The question now becomes whether Keane will be called up for Ireland’s remaining World Cup qualifiers in October when they take on group leader Germany in Berlin on Oct. 11 and Kazakhstan on Oct. 15 in Dublin. If Keane is called up for those qualifiers, he’d likely miss LA’s Oct. 16 match against the Montreal Impact at StubHub Center.
