MLS Cup: what you need to know about the final

Jose Goncalves’s New England Revolution are the outsiders to beat LA Galaxy. Photograph: Steven Senne/AP

The MLS Cup will be decided this Sunday afternoon as the LA Galaxy take on the New England Revolution at 3pm ET. The Guardian will be providing live coverage, starting from 2pm ET.

In the meantime, why not read through our build-up to the game so far:

• Graham Parker explains why Robbie Keane was a deserved winner of MLS MVP:

In a side that was struggling to adjust to a new shape and style post-Beckham, Landon Donovan going through the mental travails that kept him on sabbatical for the start of the campaign, and with Carlo Cudicini frankly awful in goal, Keane held them together as contenders. While the team fell short in the playoffs, by the time they’d regrouped for 2014, he was even better and even more central to the Galaxy’s hopes.

• Richard Whittall says the coaches of the two teams are linked:

Yet while there is a sizeable gap in age and experience between the two, Arena and Heaps are part of the same evolutionary line.

• And Graham Parker interviews Andrew Farrell, the Revolution’s rising star:

Farrell and the Revolution have already torn up the script for the final between Henry’s New York and Donovan’s LA, and the young defender, whose exponential improvement in the last two years has mirrored that of the team, is ready to act as a spoiler again

• And click here for our comparison of the teams, position by position