The Premiership trio are in the middle of an American tour where they are playing the cream of European talent in front of thousands of potential converts.

They are part of a nine-team tournament, with the grandiose title of the ChampionsWorld Series, named after the event management company who are organising the competition.

The three English Premiership clubs are battling it out with Scottish Premier League winners Celtic, Italian champions AC Milan, Galatasaray, AS Roma, European Cup winners Porto and Bayern Munich.

It is not the first time in the US for United, who have already built a following in the States and have a merchandising agreement with the New York Yankees baseball team.

In fact tickets for one of last year's matches, against Juventus, sold out faster than a Bruce Springsteen concert at the same venue - in the singer's home state of New Jersey!

This summer's tour is proving to be almost as popular, with over 30,000 turning out for Chelsea's match against Celtic, and a bumper crowd of 58,521 at Chicago's Soldier field to watch United's 0-0 draw against Bayern Munich.

But what happened during United's match against the Germans underlined why football has failed to take much of a hold in the home of the hamburger, outside the expat and Hispanic communities.

The two sides played out what was a typical mid-season encounter, which left the baying crowd unfulfilled at the final whistle.

So the organisers hastily arranged a penalty shootout to decide the outcome of the match - and because Alan Smith and John O'Shea missed their spot kicks, Bayern won 4-2, and the fans went home happy.

The problem for promoters has always been how to build sustained support for football in the US. Pundits claim in the US, where stop-start sports such as basketball, ice hockey and American football are by far the most popular, fans fail to warm to the flowing nature of football - or the frequent lack of goals.

In the same way as critics of cricket question the attraction of watching a game for five days when more often than not nobody wins, people say American sports fans may be hesitant to warm to football, where there are long periods without scoring.

Football fever reached its peak in the US in 1994, when the World Cup was held there. The games were well-patronised, but a lot of the fans were made up of supporters following their own countries rather than home-grown fans.

And in the 2002 World Cup many Americans did not notice their team get to the quarter finals - except the fans of their last 16 opponents Mexico, who had more supporters in states such as California and Texas than the US team did.

But Chelsea, United and Liverpool are hoping they can wow fans across the Atlantic during their pre-season tours, and hopefully garner sponsorship from US companies - and in turn make football a truly global game.