Houston's mission to dim Galaxy's brightest star

Robbie Keane loves LA – and LA loves him – as he goes for his second MLS title, writes EMMET MALONE, Soccer Correspondent

It’s two years now since Robbie Keane’s relationship with Harry Redknapp is said to have hit rock bottom. Tottenham were playing away and, so the story goes, the Dubliner showed up at the team bus only to discover he wasn’t even in the match-day squad.

Keane was apparently furious and Redknapp thoroughly embarrassed. The manager hadn’t meant to treat the striker with such disrespect; he had simply forgotten to make sure he was informed he was not required. That in itself must have seemed disrespectful enough to the Irishman.

The contrast in Keane’s standing stateside in the run up to this evening’s MLS Cup final could hardly be any more stark. LA Galaxy coach Bruce Arena was asked on Thursday what he thought of the 32-year-old and his reply could hardly have been any more gushing.

“He’s a real personality,” said Arena, the 61-year-old New Yorker, who will be aiming to secure his forth title as manager when LA take on Houston Dynamo at Galaxy’s Home Depot Center at 9.30pm Irish time (live on ESPN from 9.45pm).

“He’s bought into the concept of MLS, of being in LA and being with the Galaxy and he’s really, in his unique way, an outstanding leader. The guys enjoy having him around. He’s adorable, he’s tough, he’s talented, he’s witty.

“He’s a lot of good things and in his second year in the league now he’s emerged as arguably not just one of the best players in the league but a fabulous personality and a good person to have around every day.”

After the nightmare that Tottenham became and the mishap that was Liverpool, it must be comforting for Keane to know he is really wanted again.

Beckham’s last

Arena’s affection for the Irishman is scarcely surprising, though. The build up to tonight’s game has been overshadowed to a large extent by the fact it will be David Beckham’s last for the club after six years in LA.

The Englishman has pocketed a lot of money during his time in America but it is widely acknowledged he has done a good deal to raise the profile not only of his club but also of the league.

On the pitch, his contribution has at times been limited by injuries, but he had a good 2011 when he played a key role in helping Galaxy to the title, ultimately secured in a final against tonight’s opposition through a goal scored by Landon Donovan, but set up by the team’s two multi-million dollar imports, Beckham and Keane.

This year, however, Keane’s contribution has probably been greater, with the Dubliner’s return from Euro 2012 coinciding with a dramatic turnaround in the team’s fortunes. Despite missing a large chunk of the season, Keane goes into tonight’s game as the league’s fourth top scorer, and having earned his place in the “Best of” team announced a few days ago.

With Donovan, a player with whom Keane has struck up a rewarding partnership, also rumoured to be considering a change, things might be a little more difficult next year but for the moment it is not hard to see why the former Wolves and Leeds United striker says he is enjoying himself.

He is, he says, glad to be a part of building something in America and the league there continues to progress, with revenues, attendances and television audiences all climbing.

Ironed out

There remain problems which have to be ironed out at some stage if MLS is going to move up another notch and rival baseball, football and basketball in the wider American consciousness.

Arena joked on Thursday that even he doesn’t understand a slightly unwieldy and unbalanced league system system that starts with regionalised conferences before concluding in play-offs and that seems to change each season.

Even minor things change from year to year, with Galaxy hosting last year’s final because their ground had been earmarked as the venue regardless of who qualified, while this year they are ar home because they are the higher ranked of the two finalists.

Still, many difficulties have already been overcome and improvements made. Television coverage of the game has, for a start, been transformed over the last decade or so, with commercials less intrusive, commentaries better informed and the number of games covered dramatically expanded.

The game’s place in the grand scheme of things is still occasionally put in perspective, as when ESPN’s coverage of a Galaxy game a few months ago was delayed because the station chose to stick with a Little League baseball match to its conclusion, and there is still a tendency to start explaining the basics again once games are big enough to creep into the mainstream. But most of the games carried during the regular season on ESPN and NBC Sports are well produced and nicely pitched.

An explosion in the number of purpose-built stadiums has radically altered the economics of many clubs, whilst improving enormously the experience of spectators and the spectacle for those watching at home.

The league, incidentally, now has the eighth-largest average attendances (18,807 in a league where almost all grounds now are built to accommodate less than 25,000 spectators) of any in the world, placing it ahead of the likes of the top flights in Argentina and Turkey, as well as England’s Championship. It is only fractionally behind France’s Ligue 1, and closing on the Eredivisie in the Netherlands.

A critical factor in achieving those sorts of numbers is that the standard continues to improve, with the ever-growing number of children who play the game combined with better coaching, facilities and scouting, helping to produce steadily better crops of new recruits.

Draft system

They arrive via a draft system into a league that is centrally controlled along lines that would unimaginable in Europe and that have caused a fair bit of tension even in the United States where the players’ union ultimately mounted but lost a legal challenge to the terms under which its members are employed.

A minority, mostly foreign, like Beckham and Keane, earn millions, with the Irishman, for instance, guaranteed around €2.7 million before performance-related bonuses for this year and Thierry Henry picking up roughly €4.2 million.

Modestly paid

Most, on the other hand, are rather modestly paid. While Galaxy’s three biggest stars – Beckham, Keane and Donovan get around €7.5 million between them, 20 of the club’s 31 strong squad are paid less than €75,000 annually and a few peripheral members receive what is effectively the league’s minimum salary of €25,000.

Clubs differ in their approach, however, and Houston’s top earner, Brad Davis – like Beckham, a dead ball specialist who plays out wide – takes home less than a tenth of Keane’s salary, with more, though not all that many more, of the club’s players earning between €75,000 and €175,000 a year.

Dynamo’s history is an odd one: until 2007 the club was based in San Jose and called the Earthquakes.

It was successful (counting that earlier incarnation, they and Galaxy have dominated MLS between them for more than a decade, with tonight’s showdown making it a combined eight titles in 12 seasons) but its owners became frustrated at their inability to get a new stadium built so they moved everything, including the players and current coach, Glasgow-born Dominic Kinnear, south.

A new club, with new owners but the same name, was established to replace them in San Jose.

Meanwhile, the old owners, Anschutz Entertainment, an enormous entity that owns more sports clubs and events than anyone else in the world (and a big investor in MLS), sold part of their stake to Oscar de la Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions.

But they retained a quarter interest in the relocated “franchise” and that, as it happens, is the same percentage as they own in LA Galaxy.

Only in America, eh?

States of play What is the MLS Cup?

The MLS Cup is the annual match to decide Major League Soccer's champion team. It is played between the winners of the Eastern and Western Conferences, which are decided by a series of play-offs between the top 10 teams from the regular season.

Both finalists are awarded places in the Concacaf Champions League to decide the North and Central America and Caribbean region's top club side.

DC United won the inaugural final in 1996 and have won a record four titles, followed by Los Angeles with three then Houston and San Jose, with two each.

LA Galaxy won the title in 2002, 2005 and last season, beating Houston at home in the final. They were also runners-up in 1996, 1999, 2001 and 2009.

They finished the regular season as the fourth-ranked team in the Western Conference then beat the Vancouver Whitecaps, San Jose Earthquakes and Seattle Sounders in the Western Conference final to qualify for the final.

Houston Dynamo won the title in 2006 and 2007 and are appearing in their fourth final.

They finished the regular season as the fifth-ranked team in the Eastern Conference and beat Chicago Fire, Sporting Kansas City and DC United to qualify for the final.