Ireland captain aims to end fantastic club season on a greater high
Robbie Keane claimed his first ever Major League Soccer MVP award during the week after a regular season that included 19 goals and 14 assists. He has scored one play-off goal thus far but will be aiming to add to that tally on Sunday (Kick-off 8pm Irish time) when his LA Galaxy take on New England Revolution in the MLS final.
Keane says there is extra motivation to win as the match will be team-mate Landon Donovan’s final outing for the Galaxy. He comments, ‘It’s been an honour to play with him.
‘The understanding that we’ve both had on the field, the amount of goals both of us have scored and assists we have provided over the last four years has been fantastic. It is definitely up there with the best partnerships I’ve had in the game.’
‘Candidly,’ Donovan says, ‘I don’t want it to end. I’m going to have that attitude on Sunday and make it as enjoyable as possible. That would be winning. These guys deserve it and I want to help them do that.’
The 32-year-old started with L.A back in 2001 and says if someone told him he would play in sold-out 50,000-seater stadiums against the likes of Thierry Henry and with David Beckham and Keane – ‘a player I idolised early in my professional career’ – he would have said they were crazy.
‘This is it,’ he added, ‘regardless of the outcome or scoreline. I processed that earlier in the week. Now, I just want to get out there and play… Since Robbie has been here we have been in three out of four (finals) so we have a group of guys that know what this is all about.’
