The Manchester United are coming

K.C. Johnson

The similarities were everywhere and impossible to ignore. 

Assigned to spend three days following the Manchester United football club -- or, as we like to say here in the States, soccer team -- I couldn't help but think back to covering the Bulls' second three-peat. 

Like Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman and company, Red Devils stars like Wayne Rooney, Rio Ferdinand, Ryan Giggs and Nani elicited consistent exhibitions of adulation from the "Red Army" of fans I followed for three days. 

Though Manchester United currently has no single player on the star level of Jordan, its rich history, global branding and 19 league titles have created a following that, like those Bulls teams, cuts across racial and economic lines.  The shrieks from fans standing -- sometimes in the rain -- outside the club's luxury hotel in downtown Seattle sounded eerily similar to some of those I heard in the late 1990s for the Bulls. 

Unlike those Bulls teams, Manchester United's media access is tightly controlled.  From the time I arrived at Nike's World Headquarters in Beaverton, Ore., on Monday for a closed practice to the time Manchester United destroyed Major League Soccer's Seattle Sounders 7-0 on Wednesday night, players addressed the media once.  By contrast, there are typically three opportunities daily to talk to NBA players on game days. 

I knew this dynamic going into the assignment, which allowed me to work it from the outside-in -- eventually to the center.  I talked to fans in Oregon, fans in Seattle and sponsors and club officials around Manchester United.  I attended closed events like a clinic for Washington Special Olympics at Seattle University, which allowed me to see how, say, Rooney operated away from the camera's glare. 

And when I finally got to speak to some of the Manchester United players, most of them talked sincerely about the obligation they feel to the club's rich history -- which dates to 1878 -- and its current state as arguably the world's most popular sports franchise.  Giggs, who grew up in Wales and has made the most appearances for Man U, put it simply: "We're expected to win. 

So were Jordan's Bulls.  Both teams have delivered more often than not. 

One of my favorite moments from the three days occurred during one of the many periods I spent hanging out with fans outside the team's hotel.  Dave Wallace, a high school teacher from Vancouver, swung by en route to a trip to Oregon for a brief glimpse of his heroes, leaving his wife and two children in a parked car nearby.  When Wallace's absence extended, his family eventually appeared. 

Naturally, eight-month-old Sean was decked out in a Manchester United outfit.  Sean quickly became the center of attention.  A fan from Bali Island tickled him.  Another from Ethiopia cooed at him.  A recent new father from Seattle started talking to Dave's wife, a Korean woman, about parenting.