PAUL DALGLISH is less concerned these days with the business of avoiding yellow and red cards and more concerned with making sure he gets his own green card. The 30-year-old with the famous father left Hibs for Houston Dynamo last August and has been delighted to find that his family name didn't make the transatlantic flight along with him.

Having won the MLS Cup in his first season, not to mention currently closing in on a place in the Concacaf Champions League final, Dalglish junior is one football player who has been able to make a virtue out of being anonymous. He is enjoying his soccer so much stateside that he has applied to stay on and try to become an American idol in his own right.

"I had just wanted to come over to America for a few years and basically go somewhere that I could enjoy my football, and get away from the comparisons that I have had to live with for my whole life back home," said Dalglish, speaking from Houston's plush pre-season training camp at Charleston, South Carolina. "Since I have come over here I have been allowed to be me, and to relax and I think I have really benefited.

"Over here no-one has really heard of my dad, it is great. Some people know the players who are playing in the Premiership now, but older ones like my dad, the people who we would regard as legends, they have never heard of. It is just a totally different life for me.

"No-one knows who you are. You can do whatever you want to do and you don't get anyone drunk in a bar trying to dig you up about something. I have applied for my green card so I'm looking to stay here long term. Hopefully, I should have that sooner rather than later then that gives me the choice."

Having to squabble with the Rockets, the Astros, and the Texans for a place in the public eye only helps him to avoid the limelight.

"There is basketball, baseball, and American football, so we are fourth class citizens," he joked. "It is great though, because we still have one of the biggest fanbases in MLS." And he has occasionally hit the headlines.

To borrow some US parlance, Dalglish registered an assist in the 2-0 victory over Mexican league side Pachuca in the Concacaf Champions League semi-final a fortnight ago, and if they can make it through Wednesday's second leg and prevail in the final against either Chivas of Guadalajara or DC United, the Dynamo could take on the Uefa Champions League winner in December's Club World Championship in Japan.

Dalglish's quiet life may all be about to change in any case. The player has his own reasons to await the arrival at Los Angeles Galaxy this summer of David Beckham, against whom he played in one of his 14 first team appearances at St James' Park, back in the days where the two players were regarded as almost equivalent talents.

"I played against him when I was at Newcastle and he was at Manchester United, and I've met him once or twice on other occasions as well," Dalglish said. "I think he is a year or two older than me, but the game was at Old Trafford and finished 0-0. I must have been 21, and he was probably about 22. But he is a nice guy and he is probably the most famous footballer in the world. He is going to bring massive worldwide recognition to Major League Soccer.

"Everybody that you speak to over here now, any time that you mention that you play soccer it is all David Beckham, David Beckham. He has taken it from a game that the kids play when they are in school but forget about when they reach 14 or 15 - to a game where people who genuinely didn't want to know about it will be coming to watch David Beckham."

Dalglish is happy enough with his MLS crown, but had he stayed at Easter Road he could also have had the CIS Insurance Cup medal in his collection.

"I was delighted to find out that had happened," he said. "I was on the internet, looking at the pictures of them on the open top bus, and I was absolutely delighted for John Collins taking over as well. So that means the last two managers of Hibs I have cleaned their boots - back when I was at Celtic as a YTS! I have a lot of friends still at Hibs so I was absolutely delighted."

Although his centrally-held contract with the MLS expires at the end of this season in December, Dalglish has held his own amongst internationals such as Brian Ching of USA and Dwayne De Rosario of Canada to the extent that he is already in talks to extend his stay at the club at which John Spencer, the former Motherwell striker, is assistant manager to Greg Kinnear. But the apparent fulfilment of his American dream is merely the fruition of a change in attitude and approach that first kicked in when taken by Paul Lambert to Livingston, after a career which nosedived after Norwich and included a spell as a Soccer AM interviewer.

"My biggest problem, as you know, is that I stopped playing for two years, and it was because my attitude was a disgrace," he said. "I never gave myself a chance really by the way I was acting and I promised myself when I went back to play again that I would do all the things I should have done at the start. That got me more rewards in Scotland.

"Tony Mowbray was good enough to sign me in the first place then let me go over to America which was something I had wanted to do for a few years," he added. "I still had time left on mycontract, but I went to see Tony to ask if it was possible to go over and have a look at it because it was something I really really wanted to do." He feels a "young 30" and believes he may have another four or five years left.

Some others have managed to track him down as well. The local branch of the Celtic supporters club approached him after a recent game and invited him along to their club. It is somehow typical of the re-invented Dalglish that he has yet to take them up on the offer.