Seattle keeper Keller chats (cont.)

Keller grew up just outside Seattle and is a soccer legend in the Pacific Northwest. AP

SI.com: Would you have signed on no matter who the owners were?

Keller: No. I could tell from early on this group had it. Having the Vulcan organization, which owns the Seahawks -- let's be honest, what are we striving to be in this sport? We're striving to be on par with the NFL. We know we have to accept what our place is. But at the same time you have to have an ownership group that's forward-thinking, that's saying, we want to be in a stadium that holds 30,000 people. Hopefully at some stage it becomes 40,000 and 50,000. My experience in this sport is on that NFL level in Europe. Knowing that was what the aspiration was in what they were trying to achieve made it that much simpler.

SI.com: Over the past two years, you, Brian McBride, Eddie Lewis, Bobby Convey and Gregg Berhalter all have come home to MLS. That's five members of the '06 World Cup team. How big is that for the league?

Keller: That's key because we still are not quite as respected as much as I think we should be in our own league. Before I went to Fulham, I had an offer to come home and I had an offer to go to Romania that was three times what MLS was offering. At the same time, MLS has no problem paying a Mexican $2 million. That's the thing that still frustrates me. The better the Americans can do when they come home from Europe, hopefully the more respect they'll have from the ownership group and the fans to pay them what they deserve.

I had a conversation with a prominent coach here when I was on-again, off-again to coming home and he basically told me that I "owed it to the sport" to come home and play. I had to fight for everything I possibly could in Europe and now I have to fight twice as hard to come home and get a contract? That's not right. Look at the way the Dutch do it -- they understand. Ajax and PSV Eindhoven know they can't keep a hold of their homegrown stars. Someone like Phillip Cocu, who leaves PSV for Barcelona, wins everything under the sun, and what does PSV do when he's done there? They open their arms and say, "We might not be able to pay you what Barcelona can, but we're not going to pay you a fifth of what we're going to pay this Brazilian guy." It just doesn't work that way because the respect is there for him and what he has done. There are little things that need to change here.

SI.com: Six weeks into your first season, what do you think of the quality of MLS?

Keller: There's no question that it's in a great position. What we need now is to try to bump up that salary cap a little bit more, first of all, to reward those guys who do well. Too many times have I heard, "Hey, great season, but we don't think you have any options so we're actually going to lower your salary." That can't happen. At the same time, understand your place. No, you're not going to go compete with Chelsea. But the little bit more money you can pay, the little bit more quality player you're going to get.

SI.com: How close are we to catching up with Europe?

Keller: Twenty to 50 years. The NFL in 2009 is not what it was in 1959. You can't think after 14 years you're going to go compete with 120 years of history. It just doesn't work that way. But what you can do is steadily grow. And sometimes you have to take that little risk. When I first got to England in the early '90s, the Premier League was not what it is today for one major reason. That's because Rupert Murdoch paid a whole lot of money and started a TV company called Sky, bought the Premier League and gambled a big fortune. With that, the TV contracts shot through the roof and the clubs were able to pay more money to get the best players in the world away from Italy and Spain. Sometimes you have to make a commitment and hope that the more franchises we have like Seattle, the better it's going to be. It's a better game to watch on TV when it's a better game to watch in person.

SI.com: Do you see yourself staying here long enough to experience the Pacific Northwest rivalry with expansion teams in Vancouver and Portland in 2011?

Keller: That's why I've been hinting at maybe playing that one more year after my contract expires, to be a part of that. And to get as much stick as I'll get in Portland, having played in college and one year professionally down there. It'll be a lot of fun. We'll see how the body feels, we'll see how I'm playing. I could see myself squeezing another year out.

SI.com: Do you hope to be part of this organization after you hang 'em up?

Keller: That was a big part of the conversation I had in coming back. I said at my introductory press conference, I would love to be to this franchise what Franz Beckenbauer is at Bayern Munich, to go into coaching and into the back room and then still be here 30 years later.