I just found it slightly strange that there was two of us – me and Jurgen Sommer of

“I just found it slightly strange that there was two of us – me and Jurgen Sommer of Luton – holding down regular places in one of the hardestleagues of all and supposedly competing for only the third goalkeeping place.”It was a contact of Bruce Rioch, Mick McCarthy’s predecessor at Millwall, who first alerted the club to Keller’s potential. There has been no looking back since he first impressed Millwall in a trial even though it cost him the chance to represent his country, the host nation, in last summer’s World Cup.Bizarrely, the United States denied themselves his big-game experience because, he suspects, his preferred choice to learn his trade at the sharp end, instead of committing himself to a two-year World Cup preparation at home, upset the powers that mattered.Promises were made and not kept, but while many feel he was harshly treated, Keller refuses to say so publicly. After Highbury we certainly don’t think we’ve lost any advantage by going to a replay.”The 25-year-old, in his third full season in English football, has proved to be just about the most consistent of the foreign legion who challenge the assumption that no country produces goalkeepers like England. It makes the point, though, that Keller and his team have no reason to fear the Stamford Bridge replay.”The first game with Chelsea was similar to the first with Arsenal – pretty tight with few chances. The fact that they were with someone who other people recognised seemed to be a help.”At which point the thought occurred that, having won at Nottingham Forest in the Coca-Cola Cup earlier in the season, and at Arsenal in the third round of the FA Cup, Millwall rather enjoy playing away from home but it was a poor-taste joke, best resisted.

I talked the subject over with some of my team-mates at Millwall, not to pry into their own personal experiences but to find out what would happen if they went to a night-club with a friend, who was not a footballer, who would have the most opportunities?”Of course the player does, but it also true that the friend may have more opportunities through being with the player than would otherwise be the case. There was the Magic Johnson situation, and Wilt Chamberlain, the former basketball star who is reckoned to have slept with 10,000 women.”You know, in America it would not be unusual for Magic Johnson to travel to an away game and find 25 women waiting for him outside the hotel. “So it was basically a matter of collating information from American sports. Also there is the publicity factor, because you are less likely to read about it, if it involves somebody less well known.”There wasn’t the time to undertake any personal research,” he said, without a trace of a smile In any case he is happily married.

While many in his position examine the weaknesses of their opponents, he has studied the failings of his fellow footballers on a much wider scale. Keller, who joined Millwall from an American college, is completing his sociology degree, and on the question of sports ethics he chose a potentially fascinating subject: infidelity and the professional athlete. Which explains his interest in the extra-curricular activity of the fit and famous.
As a result, the conversation, in advance of tonight’s FA Cup replay with Chelsea, took a welcome turn away from whether zonal marking or a sweeper defence would best succeed. “The question I was trying to answer was whether, by nature, professional athletes cheat more on their wives or girlfriends, or whether it is just the case that the opportunity is there for them.

Kasey Keller is an outstanding goalkeeper with a difference. Milan are similarly placed withsix players on a card.That factor, and the general lack of excitement about this competition, means the game will lack any real intensity. However, as Graham said: “because we are having a bad season by our standards, any win in any competition will give us a lift.”n All non-League matches scheduled for the weekend in Paris have been called off after a fan who was shot at a game in Drancy, north of the French capital, died in hospital yesterday.. In 1990-91 I had the trial [and went to jail for drink-driving] and came out and lifted the title, so I hope this is a difficult year too.”Three Arsenal players – Lee Dixon, Martin Keown and Nigel Winterburn – are on one yellow card, and will miss the first leg of the European Cup-Winners’ Cup quarter-final against Auxerre next month if they are booked again. When the kind of things that have happened to Arsenal take place you can go under, or keep on doing your job and winning things.”People say this is a difficult year for Arsenal. Last year they said that and we won the European Cup-Winners’ Cup So was the previous year when we won two cups.