Gascoigne turns on the skill and prepares for the quieter side of life

On a wet and cool day just like home in front of a few dozen reporters and some hero worshipping college soccer players, Paul Gascoigne yesterday began what may be the last chapter in his serious professional career.

If yesterday's first training session at Washington's DC United went well, the former Spurs, Lazio and Everton player, whose private life has made as many headlines of late as his fading prowess on the pitch, could be signed up in time to play his first game in Major League Soccer on 10 August against Kansas City.

The deal is not done yet but under a steady driving rain with a football at his feet Gascoigne looked in his element. "I'm here to have a nice weekend, work hard and have a look around. I'm coming to have a look at the team and see how it goes from there.''

In Washington there is above all, escape. As his agent Ian Elliott said: "He's been out to restaurants these last two nights and no one knows who he is. And that appeals, with all the media he's had over the last few years.''

Ray Hudson, DC United's coach and fellow Geordie has been a key factor in Gascoigne's possible move to the US: "When a serious talent like Paul Gascoigne becomes available, you have to give serious consideration.''

But as the brief and unhappy involvement of Lothar Matthaüs with MetroStars showed, the lean and low budget MLS is no easy pasture for declining European superstars. The quality may not be that high, but professional soccer here is a hungry business, fighting an uncertain battle for survival and well aware that if MLS goes the way of the North America Soccer League in the 1970s, there may be no third chance.

Soccer in America is no longer the soft option it was when ageing talents named Pele, Beckenbauer, Best and Cruyff could perform their party tricks in the NASL.

These days, as the US showed in its run to the World Cup quarter-finals, what American players possess in abundance is fitness, never Gascoigne's strongest suit.

His football brain may be Einstein quality and he looked trim, taut and eager yesterday after 10 days spent tuning up in Cyprus. But can the legs still do the business through the sapping 90 degree-plus heat of a summer soccer season here? After expanding to 12 teams, MLS was forced to cut back to 10 for this season, and still loses money. The clubs are privately owned but all players are centrally contracted to MLS. Each team has a salary cap of U$1.7m (£1.1m) – for the entire playing staff.

The maximum annual wage is around U$260,000 (£165,000 or £3,000-odd a week), a pittance by Premiership standards or what Gascoigne earned during his brief run with Burnley. And endorsements and other opportunities will be fewer.

DC United, thanks to a loyal fan base in the region's largely Hispanic population draws a respectable 17,000 to its home games; this too is the heartland of the famous "soccermom'' ferrying little children around the Saturday morning school league. But when they grow up, kids in Washington idolise Michael Jordan of the basketball Wizards and Jaromir Jagr of the ice hockey Capital. The football which matters here is of the helmeted, Redskins variety. All of which guarantees Gazza, if not vast riches, then an unaccustomed anonymity. But it is legitimate to wonder whether that is what he really wants.

Washington may be a staid city of government, but it also has its temptations. Gazza comes to town with a clean slate; his boozing and wife beating made no headlines here. And US sport stars have their brushes too with drugs, drink and domestic violence as MLS commissioner Don Garber put it: "Everyone is entitled to the right to prove they are a different person, that they have learned from their mistakes.''

The question is, can Gascoigne?