Forget baseball, flag-flying O'Neill tells Americans

The Celtic manager, Martin O'Neill, has his own theory on how association football will gain mainstream appeal in the United States.

Speaking to American journalists before his side's game against Manchester United in Seattle last night, O'Neill said: "At some stage you'll get fed up with baseball and playing 6,000 games or whatever you play every 15 minutes. You'll also find out that, unlike in basketball, you don't have to be 6ft 10in to be a good soccer player. There are so many young people playing soccer here that one of these days you're going to get really into the sport and go for it."

Maybe the uncharacteristic heat wave enveloping Seattle - a city associated with persistent drizzle as much as Starbucks, Microsoft and Boeing - had gone to O'Neill's head, maybe he knew that a charm offensive is as good a tool as any to raise the profile of his club with a public for whom style can often triumph over substance.

O'Neill cut an impressive figure alongside his United counterpart, Sir Alex Ferguson, joking with the media and providing a potted history of the Glasgow club. "Manchester United are vying with Real Madrid at this minute for being the two greatest clubs in the world," he said. "Despite Celtic not playing in the same kind of league as that, we have a following as good as any."

O'Neill then went on to to explain how 80,000 Celtic fans made their way to Seville for May's Uefa Cup final - and that 50,000 of them did not even get into the stadium. The logic in travelling a thousand miles with little hope of seeing your team play seemed surreal to the assembled Americans.

Asked for his thoughts on why soccer had so far struggled to gain a genuine foothold in the States, Ferguson said: "The initial NASL league failed in the Seventies because too many foreign players were brought in. But that has changed and the new league is organised differently and American players are encouraged. If the US continues its progress and has a couple of successful World Cups then attitudes will change and if you look at the development of young people playing soccer then the future looks good.

"Another reason that soccer has not caught on like in Europe is because of the size of the country. In Europe it's possible for fans to travel to away games and they can really add to the rivalry and atmosphere. In America, it can take five or six hours to fly between some cities and would be difficult for fans to travel."

While the two managers pondered upon how, in spite of hosting the 1994 World Cup, soccer has failed to break the domination of the big four US sports - American football, baseball, ice hockey and basketball - the United chief executive, Peter Kenyon, was more prosaic in his approach to future expansion of the Manchester United brand in the States. Asked how United would build on a successful tour, Kenyon said: "Mori [the market research organisation] have told us that we've got four million supporters in the US and we know that many of them are every bit as knowledgeable as fans in Salford and Stretford. They watch the Premier League on television and access the internet for information on Manchester United - technology is adding new dimensions for us.

"We've started a major new partnership with Nike and one of the key issues we're addressing with them is how we become more relevant to them outside the opportunity of coming here every two years. Soccer clinics, training schools, publications and videos all offer ways of communicating with supporters."

While it is true that some of the often patronised US soccer fans know their Alloa from their Abroath, there is a steep learning curve ahead for others. One taxi driver boasted of being a big soccer fan and looking forward to attending last night's game. Except that he had failed to take in the extensive local media coverage and the "Manchester v Celtic" posters posted around Seattle's downtown. "Who's playing by the way?" he queried, "USA versus Scotland?"