Asked how comfortable he was with his Los Angeles Galaxy side being considered heavy favourites in Sunday' night's MLS Cup title decider against Real Salt Lake, Bruce Arena succinctly underlined just where exactly soccer fits in the American sporting landscape.

“Where are we heavy favourites?” he replied. “I haven't seen any (betting) lines on this.

“I think Vegas has probably collected about 12 dollars on this game.”

In Seattle itself, however, it is a different story. For those people out there with an image of these United States of America as a nation of soccer philistines, a weekend in the Emerald City would quickly dispel such a perception.

Up in the Pacific Northwest, they know their beautiful game and Seattle is every bit as much of a soccer city as it is a gridiron one, given equal billing alongside the NFL's Seahawks.

The staging of Major League Soccer's biggest game of the season here on Sunday night between the Galaxy and Salt Lake is a fitting one at the end of a season that has seen the Seattle Sounders make a real splash in its inaugural campaign.

With a team built around goalkeeper Kasey Keller and former Arsenal star Freddie Ljungberg, the Sounders have become instant powerhouses in MLS, reaching the post-season play-offs at the first opportunity and doing it in front of a 30,943 average attendance at Qwest Field that would sit very comfortably in any major European league.

The Galaxy may be in town with Landon Donovan and David Beckham grabbing the spotlight but the green displayed by the good citizens of Seattle is not an envious tone but the colours of their beloved Sounders.

Posters of Sounders players are everywhere, pubs and bars hang flags and scarves and the fast food van outside Qwest Field even sells “Ljungberg dogs” - and all when the Sounders' season ended two weeks ago.

MLS officials are expecting a big crowd tomorrow night with 40,000 tickets sold but instead of sporting Galaxy or Real colours, I'm willing to bet the finale of the 2009 season will be played out against a very green backdrop here in the Emerald City.