LA Galaxy v New England Revolution

StubHub Centre, Carson, California, Sunday
BT Sport 2 (Kick-off: 8pm Irish time)

It's nearly midday at the StubHub Center, home ground of the LA Galaxy. The grass is green, the sun is shining, it's 20 degrees, and I am hoping to get some face time with the King of LA. But the King has other fish to fry.

The Galaxy press officer, Brendan Hannan, just gave me the bad news. Robbie Keane fulfilled all his media duties yesterday at the official pre-game press conference. The Galaxy won't be asking him to do any more interviews today.

Training is winding down and several Galaxy players are doing shooting practice. Keane is over by the corner flag, kicking a ball around with a couple of young kids. I recognise one of them as his five-year old son, Robert. Robert is wearing a Celtic top and seems to favour his left foot.

A few feet to my left the Galaxy coach Bruce Arena is talking to reporters. Maybe I could ask him something about the King. But he probably wouldn't say anything much and I know that if I do, that's the moment when Robbie will come walking past.

Robbie is teaching Robert how to roll the ball along the back of his arms. The boy tries but the ball rolls off his arm. Robbie picks it up and shows him how he has to lean his head forward to let the ball roll past. Robert tries again, and it looks like he’s getting there.

Suddenly their game is over and they start to walk off the field. Something about my demeanour makes Brendan take pity on me. He moves towards Robbie and has a quick word.

"There's someone here from Ireland. "

The King is surprised. “Oh yeah? Who?” He turns and looks over in my direction. I attempt an ingratiating smile. I can’t tell for sure at this distance, but I think he barely suppresses a wince. He was thinking he was about to go home. But he’s the franchise player now, and he knows that MLS is still at that stage in its development where it’s keen to project an image of sunny, affable availability.

The best player in the United States nods his head and makes his way over to the wire fence.

Two days ago, the LA Galaxy celebrated Robbie’s MVP award by posting several pictures of him with a golden crown drawn on his head under the slogan “Keane Is King”.

His 2014 season highlights reel is mind-blowing. He’s playing with total confidence. Volleys, nutmegs, outrageous chips, no-look passes. “Stop it! Stop it!” the commentators yell. “How many players can do this?!”

I tell him that back home the Keane Is King MVP video is vying in popularity with Stephanie Roche’s Puskas Award-nominated goal. Has he seen it?

"No I haven't seen it. I've seen Stephanie Roche though - I voted for her. It's nice to be recognised by fellow professionals and the media, so personally it's been a good season for me, but the award wouldn't mean as much if we didn't win tomorrow."

He’s the top scorer in the league with 19 goals in 29 games, but what surprises me about his record is that he’s also got 14 assists. Does that suggest his game has changed as he’s got older?

“No. I’ve been doing it since I’ve been here, if you look at the assists. At Tottenham it was the same. My role for Ireland is probably different than it is at club level. With Ireland we play a different way. Here, I play a lot deeper. Play off the front man. With the Irish team I’m usually the one getting on the flick-ons, or playing up front on my own. At club level I’ve always played as a number 10 if you like, certainly at Tottenham. I dunno what my assists are at Tottenham, I’ve no clue to be honest with you. But it’s something I’ve always enjoyed doing.”

Assist statistics in English football before 2006 can be patchy, but the best estimate seems to be that Keane got a total of 31 league assists for Tottenham in 231 games. Which is fewer than the 35 he’s got for the Galaxy in 84 games. But then, Keane always had other priorities.

Thierry Henry recently told Blizzard magazine: "To me, the most beautiful thing is making the pass when you are in a position to score yourself. You know you're good enough to score, but you give the ball. You share. And you see that joy in the eyes of the other guy. You know, he knows, everyone knows."

Henry won plenty of individual awards during a brilliant career, but none of them were for sincerity. When Landon Donovan was left out of the US World Cup squad, Keane set him up for a couple of goals when he could have scored himself. Donovan appreciated the dig-out. But those were special circumstances. Keane is never going to pretend that setting up a team-mate is as good as scoring himself.

“Listen, nothing beats scoring. That’s first and foremost. I’m a goalscorer and I love scoring goals. If you get a lot of assists and you help the team, then great. But that hunger to keep scoring goals is still there, more than ever.”

If Keane leads the Galaxy to victory in the final on Sunday it will be his third US title in four years. Does he see these trophies as vindication for his decision to quit English football and come to America in 2011?

“I think it was clear for everyone to see that it’s worked out very well for me. If I win three in four years, well, it’s not too bad. I came here to win things and that’s been the case. It’s a city - well, it’s a country - that’s grown massively in football terms. The attention the sport is getting, the excitement it’s creating, with the World Cup, the US national team, and ourselves . . . All over LA there’s posters of all the players, myself included. It’s grown massively here.”

He looks sceptical when I ask if he takes any pride in his part in the game’s increased popularity, as though wary of sounding like he’s exaggerating his own importance.

“It’s nice . . . I didn’t come over here to . . . you know, to help ‘grow the sport’. If I can help in any way possible, then great. The one that kicked it all off was obviously Becks. He was the one that really put LA Galaxy and MLS on the map. The result is that a lot of people want to come over here. It’s a league that has grown massively. Most games - well, nearly all games - are full houses.

“I think it’s gonna continue for a long time, keep going up. Unless something happens, unless it absolutely crashes because something happens financially, or something like that - but I can’t see that. I can see this league growing. You look at the players that are coming and the players that want to come. A lot of players that I know personally. Big players. I won’t tell you who they are, but they want to come here now. That just shows you.”

Keane’s influence has grown at the Galaxy to the extent that the club now asks his opinion on new signings. He’s been praised by US media for how well he’s adapted to MLS, but what were the differences he had to adapt to?

“People always ask me that question, but before you come over here you know exactly what you’re letting yourself in for. People say about the travel, but you know that before you come over. So if you get a shock when you come over, well, you’re either stupid or there’s something wrong with you. I adjusted because I love what I do. I love playing football. I want to play as long as I can, at a high level, continue to have that hunger and desire to succeed. It’s more myself really, wanting to play and continue to play for a long, long time.”

One obvious difference between the game here and in Europe is that in America, journalists are allowed into the dressing room after games to talk to the players. Could he see it working in the Irish context?

“Ha. What do you think? I wouldn’t say it’d happen over there, it’s probably an American thing, but it’s a more relaxed environment and maybe helps the relationship between journalists and players. When you lose a game it’s not great but . . . as long as you’re not peeping, you know?”

Another difference is that Keane’s two-month winter holiday will start in less than 24 hours. His Ireland team-mates will be gearing up for the most demanding part of the English football season while he spends Christmas with his family.

“That’s something that I have enjoyed. Last year was the first time I was in Ireland for Christmas for 17 years. So it’s certainly something I did enjoy. But when you’re playing in England you kind of get used to it. It can be brutal, it’s tough going on your body, four games in ten days or something like that? It’s tough. So you know, over the Christmas period I’ll send them a few pictures of me having a nice glass of red and wish them luck for the games...”

His mother and brother have come over to Los Angeles to see him play the final. A lot of emigrants say that the further away they get from home, the more sentimental they become about it, but Keane doesn't seem to be one of them.

“Well, I left home when I was 15. So it doesn’t really make a difference to me. Of course, Dublin is my home and it always will be. America’s been great to me. But you know, when I finish playing, I’ll certainly move back to Ireland. It’s my home, I love going back there, I’ll be home for Christmas. But as I said, It’s not like I left just a few years ago. I left when I was 15. So it’s been a long time.”

He shows the strength of his attachment to Ireland by regularly spending 13 hours each way in a plane to turn up for international duty. But he’s been just as committed when it comes to getting back on time and playing through jetlag for the Galaxy. It’s a question of professionalism rather than patriotism. I wonder whether it’s important to him to feel like people back home are taking notice what he’s achieved in America.

“Yeah, well . . . It’s not something I check every time I score, make sure that people in Ireland are watching. But of course all my family’s there, and friends are still there. So they update me on a lot of stuff. And it’s not like it was ten years ago, you leave to go somewhere and people leave you alone. With social media and everything now, people can see everything that people are doing. So you know people write about it . . . but people only write about things if you’re doing well. If you’re not doing well, they’ll leave you alone, or write some other stuff about you. So the fact that people are writing about it, I’m obviously doing something right.”

There’s something I want him to clear up. In 2011 he said, somewhat mysteriously, that “if I didn’t play for Ireland and someone else comes in, I’ve always said I would walk away.” Did he mean that he would walk away from Ireland if he was no longer starting the matches? We both know that the Scotland game last month in Glasgow was the first time he had started a competitive Ireland match on the bench since 2001.

I can see he’s slightly irritated by the question, as though this isn’t the time to be asking about his future with Ireland. But he answers it anyway.

“No, I said ‘if I’m not wanted’. If you’re not wanted - if you’re not picked for the squad, you won’t go. So I’m very lucky that people still want me. So as long as they want me, I’ll keep playing.”

Along with Donovan, Keane is the Galaxy’s most experienced player. MLS TV recently showed footage of him in captain mode, before the second leg of the play-off semi away to Seattle. Keane goes around the dressing-room shaking team-mates’ hands, then starts firing them up.

“Everybody know your jobs, know your jobs!” he shouts. “We’re not here for a draw, we’re here to win the game! Everybody be switched on, switched on! This is why we play the game, for moments like this! Don’t disappoint yourself!”

He’s reached the point in his career where he’s dispensing advice to younger players. For instance, he’s told the young Galaxy forward Gyasi Zardes to cut the over-elaboration out of his game. I ask him to imagine he had the chance to talk to the 18-year old Robbie Keane. What advice would he give him?

“Well... I don’t stand there and look in the mirror and give myself advice,” he says. “But if I did, I’d say, you know... just enjoy what you do. Listen, make no mistake. What we do is a privilege. To wake up every morning, to kick a football around - it doesn’t get better than that. I get paid for something I love doing. There’s people - friends, family - they’ve jobs that they don’t enjoy doing. Because they just have to put food on the table for people. I get paid for something that I love doing. I would do it for free.”

“So I’d say enjoy it, and embrace it. Love the game. When you go out there, every morning when you wake up, look forward to getting out there, look forward to playing games, have that hunger and desire to want to play, to want to play at the highest level. Whether things are going good or bad, enjoy it. Because it’s a good life.”