There are millions playing each weekend, kids growing up with the game on the high school curriculum, and some even venturing to watch Major League Soccer.

It was bound to happen. With the States so multi-ethnic, the swinging of a baseball bat or swishing of an ice-hockey stick was bound not to appeal to everyone, and so we shouldn't really be surprised that football is now making an impact. And how.

The United States finished 2005 ranked eighth in the world by FIFA one ahead of ninth placed England, four places ahead of Italy and EIGHT places ahead of Germany. More than half a century has passed since they served notice of good things to come by beating England at the first post-war 1950 World Cup.

Come the 2006 event, a dozen years will have passed since they were trusted with staging the event themselves. And maybe by July they will have sent a chilling message to those still convinced football's power-base is split between Europe and South America.

When the USA hosted the World Cup in 1994, it was an obvious attempt to foster a footballing culture in the world's biggest commercial sports market. Its impact was nothing short of having Major League baseball's World Series staged in Birmingham. It confused most Americans, it passed others by. To many, even today soccer remains alien. But in Bruce Arena the US have one of their nation's great sporting coaches.

He took over in 1998 boasting a coaching CV oozing success at every level of the domestic game. While his own playing career was limited to college and all-America honours due to a lack of opportunities during the 1970s - he earned just one cap as a substitute - in a tracksuit he excels.

Eighteen seasons at the University of Virginia - one of the USA's early footballing factories - yielded four NCAA titles as Arena nurtured the likes of John Harkes - formerly of West Ham and Sheffield Wednesday - and current USA captain Claudio Reyna.