Will Keane's Journey: From Promise to Setbacks

On a warm night in May 2012, in an Under-19s European Championship qualifier against Switzerland, England started with two young centre-forwards.

One was Harry Kane. The other, the one most insiders thought would go further, was Will Keane.

Back then, the path looked straight for Keane. Upwards, too.

"I'd never had any setbacks at that point," he recalls in conversation with BBC Sport. "When you're young, you're fearless. The whole trajectory of my career was up. I made my senior debut for Manchester United. We won the Youth Cup. I was doing well for England. Everything was taking off."

Then the tackle came, late in that game against Switzerland. A major knee injury. Sixteen months gone in an instant.

While Keane disappeared into rehab rooms and gym sessions, Kane went out on loan to Norwich and Leicester, then punched his way into the Tottenham first team. Two careers that had once run side by side suddenly split.

"It's timing," Keane says. "Some lads go their whole career and have a few niggles, but nothing derails them too much.

"That first injury was at a crucial time. I had my foot in the door. The feeling was I would probably have been around the first team.

"If the injury had happened a couple of years later, I might have been an established squad player. When I had it, I missed 16 months at a crucial part of the transition from reserves to seniors."

While Kane now prepares for Argentina in a World Cup semi-final, Keane is in very different surroundings. He is at Champneys Springs in Leicestershire, one of 45 out-of-contract professionals at the PFA’s 12-week pre-season camp, trying to earn another deal and extend a career that has already taken in eight clubs, 335 senior appearances and 85 goals.

At 33, he is not done yet. Not with club football, and not with international football either. Having represented England through the age groups before switching to the Republic of Ireland, where he has five senior caps, he still believes there is more to come.

"A couple of lads I know did the camp last season and spoke really highly," he says. "I almost feel like I'm part of a squad, and we're away for pre-season. There are so many staff; medical, coaching, administrative, media.

"It's quite competitive and there are seven or eight games, so clubs can see you're playing. There's an app clubs can sign up to. It's like a PFA transfer list - all our training data goes on it. Clubs can contact us directly, so hopefully if you go somewhere, you can go straight in."

This is not his first brush with uncertainty. He was released once before, in 2020, when Covid hit and Ipswich chose not to trigger a one-year option amid financial doubts. Keane eventually returned to Wigan and, in doing so, started to rethink how he approached the sport.

The physical setbacks alone would have tested anyone. That first ACL tear was brutal. Then came another cruel twist: a ripped groin in Manchester United’s FA Cup tie at Shrewsbury in February 2016.

That injury changed more than his season. It changed club history.

Because when Anthony Martial pulled up in the warm-up for the Europa League tie against Midtjylland three days later, it was not Keane on the bench. It was a 17-year-old Marcus Rashford.

Louis van Gaal threw Rashford in. He scored twice on his debut, then twice more in the Premier League against Arsenal.

"I went to America for an operation, landed in Philadelphia, turned my phone on and saw he scored two more," Keane says.

At 23, a boyhood United fan, he knew. That was the end of the dream at Old Trafford.

"It was hard to take, but I had to move on. I got a good move to Hull, who had just been promoted to the Premier League," he says.

Six games in, his knee went again. Another ACL. Another 14 months out.

"It was crushing," he admits. "I missed the whole season, and we got relegated. A lot of the young lads still got good moves; Harry Maguire went to Leicester, Andy Robertson went to Liverpool, Sam Clucas to Swansea."

While others climbed, Keane was forced into a different kind of work. Not just on his body, but on his mind.

At Wigan, he finally tackled it properly.

"I'd used sports psychologists before and always tried to be positive and optimistic, but I started working with someone at Wigan who hadn't worked in football before," he explains.

"He's a bit more of a spiritual psychologist. We focus on positive intentions, manifesting, visualisation.

"I'd tried everything in the box, and kept breaking down, so I wanted to do something a bit different.

"I wish I'd had that when I was younger, especially with the setbacks I had early on. It might have got me back into the right frame of mind.

"For any player if you've not got belief in yourself, and you're lacking confidence, you're not going to perform the way you can."

The doubts had crept in long before Wigan. He had been around the first team at United, then the injury hit, followed by loan spells in the Championship that did not quite catch fire.

"I was around the first team at United, then I got the injury, had a few loans in the Championship where I didn't do very well and I started to doubt myself. Wigan catapulted me.

"Before that I should have backed myself. I played with a lot of those lads all the way through, and that's where I was potentially heading.

"If I'd focused on the mental part earlier, it might have been a different outcome.

"Even at times when I picked up injuries, maybe I had a bit of self-doubt which led to something going wrong. If I was in the right frame of mind, maybe one of those bad injuries wouldn't even have happened."

While Keane wrestled with belief, his old strike partner seemed to run on it.

Harry Kane’s confidence has been a constant theme throughout his rise. Keane saw the foundations of it years ago.

"I remember when we were young, people said he wasn't mobile but technically, the time he put into his finishing and his obsessiveness to be the best in terms of shooting, you see it don't you?" he says.

"He's so sure of himself, because he's put the work in. He knows he's a complete striker.

"He's obviously got that belief in himself. He might miss one, but he's not going shy away from it. If he didn't have certainty in his mind, he wouldn't be as prolific.

"He's not arrogant, he's just got the confidence that sets top players apart."

Keane’s own journey has been more jagged. After ending last season on loan at Reading, he left Preston when his contract expired. Now he waits, trains, plays in front of watching scouts and sporting directors, and keeps his phone close.

"There's been a few chats," he says. "I'm sure they're aware of me. They might be looking for A, B and C targets, but when the season does start, if a club doesn't have a great start, there's a bit of panic and maybe things open up."

There is another split in his story, too. The international one.

He grew up in England’s system all the way to Under-21 level, then chose the Republic of Ireland for senior football, honouring his father’s birthplace while still feeling the pull of the country where he was raised.

"It's a hard one because I played for England up until Under-21s, and then seniors for the Republic of Ireland, so I've got a foot in both camps.

"I am proud to represent Ireland. My dad was born there and moved to England. But I've also been born and raised in England, and my family's English."

So as Kane leads England into the final stretch of a World Cup, Keane prepares for another trial game in front of another set of eyes, still chasing a contract, still trying to squeeze more from a career that once seemed destined to run alongside his old team-mate’s.

One striker stands on the brink of history. The other stands on a training pitch in Leicestershire, determined that his story is not finished yet.