Opening round games can then be seen in Washington, Boston and New York over the following five days. It would be a struggle to get from there to Orlando in two days, but there is an option in six.

Four days later you can catch a second round match in Dallas, and then take your time to reach San Francisco's quarter-final contest the following week.

There is to be some rest on the beach, before seeing a semi-final staged in Los Angeles. You are at the Rose Bowl, watching two of the four best teams in the world; knowing full well that you could probably never afford the asking price for the final, in the same stadium, after all the ground you've covered.

It would be possible, but too much time is spent on one Greyhound bus or another, and little of the country is seen; except for soccer stadiums offering hamburgers and cokes, bus-station lockers if they work, and the moving hands of time that push you on. One missed connection in the early stages, and it could all fall apart; the project pointless.

England are not even in the competition, and are you such a fan that you would pay to watch 90 minutes of Mexico v's Norway, or Morocco v's Holland; both Europeans, there at the expense of your country?

So a more leisurely option is chosen....

It is too early to spend all your money in the clothing houses of Chicago, and not too exciting to prost with the Deutsch.

It's almost an impossibility to taste the Manhattan cocktail, with thousands of resident Irish and Italians in and around New Jersey.

And it will hardly be a tea-party in Boston, where the hand of God is to give it a stir.

So that determines the dome of Detroit as the first destination to draw your attention for the qualifying round.