Alan Hinton turned to look at the boisterous South End in full cry. ‘Sometimes I go and sing to them,’ he said. ‘I sing: “We’ve got the best team in the land”.’ And Seattle Sounders have.

Saturday’s out-of-character defeat by San Jose Earthquakes aside, they are the best of Major League Soccer right now.

As snobby Europeans, of course, we know that isn’t saying much. MLS is where good footballers go to die, that is our perception. David Beckham, Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard, Thierry Henry. It’s the last paycheck, the last waltz, before the studio sofa or the first tee beckons. The money’s good and the shift is no stretch. Gerrard’s biggest problem at Los Angeles Galaxy will be finding a team-mate who can appreciate a foot that works with the understanding and precision of a quarterback’s arm.

Seattle Sounders have proved a good model as a club and one that other sides in the MLS can copy

Fans cheer for the Seattle Sounders before their MLS match against FC Dallas earlier in June

The supporters are noisy and sing the same songs as loud as fans do at any Premier League ground

Yet the fans Hinton serenades are slowly changing this. It isn’t just the football on the Pacific North West that is worth a second glance. In Seattle, an army is marching that may one day alter the global power-base of the game. If football takes off in the rest of America as it has here, who knows how the sport will look several decades from now.

This is not about standards of play. It’s about the size of the gate and commercial potential. The Sounders are America’s retort to those who think the MLS is small-time.

Their average attendance last season — 43,734 — would put them sixth in the Premier League behind Manchester United, Arsenal, Newcastle United, Manchester City and Liverpool.

They are the best supported club in the Americas, with the exception of River Plate of Argentina, and the 27th best supported in the world. If they could persuade another 2,000 people to commit in a city with an area population of 3.6million, they would be inside the top 20.

There was a fraction under 40,000 people to watch the match against San Jose and Seattle’s management would have been disappointed with that. They share the stadium with the Seattle Seahawks NFL franchise and most of the upper tier remains closed off for all but local derbies. Yet those average 55,533.

Major League Soccer is coming to realise that the key to growth is rivalry, which is why New York now has two teams and Los Angeles is getting more. Hinton, a United States resident since 1977 and a former coach and club president at the Sounders, says major cities are queuing up to get a team of their own, Atlanta the latest on that list. The fans don’t know football the way they do NFL, he says, but one day they will. Maybe sooner than anyone anticipated.

Alan Hinton moved to the US in 1977 and feels fans will take to the MLS as well as they have the NFL

Hinton played for Derby County (pictured) and is a former coach and club president at the Seattle Sounders

For there is a game-changer that nobody could have anticipated. Degenerative brain disease. As the NFL prepares to pay out compensation approaching $1billion to players who have suffered as a result of extreme physical contact, and one in three retired professionals are said to be affected, soccer is increasingly seen as the safe option.

In conversation with the principal of a local school this week, he said his sports curriculum no longer included gridiron. Not the school’s policy — the wish of concerned parents. Tim had grown up in Europe, had British connections, even played a bit of rugby. ‘In rugby, you are taught how to tackle to protect yourself,’ he said. ‘But NFL players go head to head, and often literally.’ His school played soccer instead.

This isn’t the reason the Sounders draw 50,000 — but it is an unforeseen circumstance boosting participation numbers in America, and therefore wider interest in the game. Seattle had a head start, with its football traditions.

Hinton, an England international who won the title twice at Derby County, wasn’t the only star to come here in the 1970s.

One in three retired professionals are said to be affected as a result of extreme physical contact

The NFL is preparing to pay compensation approaching $1billion to players who have suffered as a result

Soccer is increasingly seen as the safe option with American football causing concern in the United States

SEATTLE LAST FIVE RESULTS IN MLS L - 2-0 vs San Jose Earthquakes (home) Attendance: 39,971 W - 3-0 vs FC Dallas (home) Attendance: 41,108 L - 1-0 vs Sporting Kansas City (away) Attendance: 21,505 W - 2-1 vs New York Red Bulls (home) Attendance: 40,194 W - 1-0 vs Colorado Rapids (home) Attendance: 39,757 Advertisement

Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst, Alan Hudson, Jimmy Gabriel and Harry Redknapp all found a temporary home in the city — and a fundraiser for Hudson in Seattle last year made more than a similar event organised by Chelsea. In 2007, the Sounders were reborn as a MLS franchise and immediately attracted 18,000 season-ticket holders. Milton Keynes — where ‘a football fever is just waiting to happen,’ according to Pete Winkelman — could only dream of this instant enthusiasm. A decade after forming, in a promotion-winning season, MK Dons still averaged just 9,452.

Season-ticket holders at Seattle Sounders have now doubled from the initial take-up and have a very European enthusiasm for their team, a genuine football fever.

They are noisy. They sing. There are drummers and large flags. They aren’t the docile grazers found at ball parks. The response to the call, ‘Can you hear the Earthquakes sing?’ was exactly the same as it would be at any Premier League ground.

Yes, the culture has been approximated, but in other ways it has been improved.

Before the match, the Sounders celebrated Pride Week. There were 35 rainbow flags waved by members of the gay community on parade, and a golden scarf presentation was made to NBA center Jason Collins, who in 2013 became the first current player in any of America’s four leading sports to come out. The fans sang his name, with no strings or slurs attached.

Flames emerge as fans cheer for the Seattle Sounders ahead of their recent MLS match in June

Seattle Sounders forward Lamar Neagle (right) runs with the ball against San Jose Earthquakes

Seattle Sounders suffered a rare, out-of-character defeat by San Jose Earthquakes on Saturday

Collins never played for Seattle, wasn’t born in Seattle, doesn’t live in Seattle, wasn’t schooled in Seattle. It is not an atmosphere of acceptance expected at any English football ground any day soon. It helps that the club is extremely well run. A stroke of genius at the beginning was to share the Seahawks staff and expertise, as well as the stadium.

The arena gives the club an appealing downtown location, the employees knew their way around issues such as marketing and ticket sales.

Obviously, not every MLS club is as well-appointed as Seattle. Yet this is the ground floor. They are a good model. One that can be copied, tweaked to fit a different location and heritage.

New York City may have been bottom of their league for much of this season but they are drawing gates of more than 26,000 with a season-ticket membership approaching 20,000. Not bad for a start-up.

The standards are not as high in the MLS, with Clint Dempsey pictured shooting, but there is potential

Former Newcastle United forward Obafemi Martins wears a protective mask during their MLS match

So what happens next? This is where it gets interesting. The football isn’t the best right now, but that hardly matters. It is improving and, as it does, so will commercial interest. Then, if soccer in America capitalises on the fears around NFL, it could grow rapidly. And once the money comes in, we know from experience, so will the players. And not just for the last hurrah, either.

If soccer began to generate the wealth of other frontline sports in the United States, it would start to capture players at 25, not 35 — or at least pique the interest of their agents.

America would keep the best players generated by its academies, too, because a country that sings the national anthem before every sports event is aching to promote homegrown heroes.

Imagine if the super-fast young men now schooled to be wide receivers became wingers instead; or played off the shoulder of the last defender? In a country of 319million, have no doubt the talent is there.

Frank Lampard's New York City deal is worth £3.78million a year, according to Major League Soccer figures

If soccer in America capitalises on the fears around NFL, it could grow rapidly as a sport in the US

Steven Gerrard is joining LA Galaxy but he is moving to a country that aches to promote homegrown heroes

Yes, we have heard it before. Remember when the J-League was going to be the world’s biggest? Yet Japan had no cultural event as potentially significant as the health scare around NFL.

If football in America taps into that and the Sounders start to encroach on the Seahawks’ market — and this is a process that will take decades, not years — there is the potential to turn the game on its head.

What price the Champions League if some of the biggest and richest clubs in the world were no longer European? What would happen to the transfer market if the cream of South American talent had options closer to home?

In Seattle, are we witnessing the infant steps of a new global club game? If they can take over coffee, computers and cacophony from here, it really isn’t that far-fetched.

Seattle Sounders are a good model and one that New York City and other new franchises can copy

Seattle Sounders defender Leo Gonzalez takes a selfie with a young fan after their MLS match last week

Olympic home comes at a cost

Really? Every time? Is that how it is? Whenever money is spent redeveloping London’s Olympic Stadium, will the cry go up about how much it costs the taxpayer, and how little West Ham United are contributing to their new home?

Get it clear: the taxpayer was committed the moment London hosted an Olympics because a new arena then had to be built. Once the trio in charge — Lord Coe, Ken Livingstone and Tessa Jowell — decided not to involve a football club in the project there was always going to be a legacy issue. This is the fall-out. We either let the place rot, or give it a future, and West Ham were the only feasible option. But they are tenants, not owners.

The Olympic Stadium is, in essence, a very large council house. It is not the job of the renters to make it habitable.

West Ham's newly-appointed manager Slaven Bilic pictured at their soon-to-be Olympic Stadium home

A CGI mock-up of how the transformed Olympic Stadium will look during a West Ham match

Jose Mourinho is surely not alone in feeling a little cheated when the individual awards are handed out. In September 2013, La Liga introduced a Player of the Month prize. Diego Costa was the first recipient, and 17 monthly citations have followed.

The former Arsenal man, Carlos Vela, has won twice — so has Diego Godin, Antoine Griezmann and, unsurprisingly, Cristiano Ronaldo.

But there are a lot of good players in Spain. Competition is very tough. Even so, no Lionel Messi. Not once. Not ever. Maybe he just saves it up for when he plays the English clubs.

Maybe those 58 goals in Barcelona’s treble-winning season truly did not compare to the four Nolito scored to propel Celta Vigo to sixth place — or the three Vitolo got for Sevilla in March, to double his season’s tally; or maybe they simply feel if they gave it to Messi once, he would have to win it every time.

Lionel Messi has never won a Player of the Month award in La Liga since it was introduced in September 2013

And while we're at it...

Musa Bility, head of the Liberian Football Association, has announced his candidacy for FIFA president, saying it is time for Africa to take a lead in football’s world affairs.

Actually, it’s not. It’s time for Africa to butt the hell out, considering the corrupt regime of Sepp Blatter and his henchmen was as good as propped up by the continent until the bitter end.

The heads of African football have emerged with no credit from recent revelations, prepared to sell the sport down the river for their own selfish interests.

The impact the continent’s footballers continue to have on the game is wonderful, the same for their fans, who bring joy to every World Cup. But Africa’s executives have done nothing to merit the responsibility of power. Bility may be a genuine individual but we know he voted for Blatter at the last election, because Africa did, en bloc. This does not suggest the individual willpower, or desire for reform, required to lead football out of the swamp.

Musa Bility, head of the Liberian Football Association, after announcing his candidacy for FIFA presidency

Executive Bility insists it is time for Africa to take a lead in football’s world affairs but it is not

Athletes have it easy in the long run

It was a matter of time after news of Mo Farah’s missed tests broke before the world of athletics began bleating about the complexity of the whereabouts rule.

‘You find me one person who has never in their life missed an appointment or not been an hour late for something,’ said middle-distance runner Hannah England. ‘That’s just the reality of life, it happens.’

No it doesn’t. The difficulty of the whereabouts rule is a myth. Millions of people embrace a whereabouts rule successfully. It’s called holding down a job. You know that moment when the clock strikes nine and you have to be at your desk? That’s a whereabouts rule.

British middle-distance runner Hannah England feels it is 'just the reality of life' to miss an appointment

The news of Mo Farah’s missed tests which Sportsmail revealed has had a mixed reaction from athletes

And most firms won’t operate a three strikes system either. Trains run, banks open, supermarket shelves are stacked and you are not looking at an empty space here because of a whereabouts rule.

So athletes are not special, or exceptionally put-upon. If anything, they’re privileged — because they can change schedules with a text message. We’d all love to be able to alter our deadlines like that.

Kelly Sotherton, the former Great Britain heptathlete, is so out of touch with the real world she offered a challenge. ‘All these people who think it’s easy not to miss tests, do it for a year and see how you get on,’ she said. But we do. For years on end. And isn’t it funny how they never miss the meetings? You know, for such a bunch of scatterbrains.

Newcastle United have delayed their offer for Charlie Austin, after becoming concerned that he wishes to remain in London. There would be one very easy way to find out, of course, but that process appears to be alien to Mike Ashley.