The Houston Dynamon has won the Major League Soccer (MLS) Cup twice and and been runners-up on two other occasions. Not a bad performance. Despite this, their 2017 salary bill was just over $5M. The University of Alabama's Football coach, Nick Sabin, makes more than an entire team of professionals.

The Dynamo was founded in 2005 and moved to their current ground, BBVA Compass Stadium, in 2012. The capacity of this stadium is just over 22,000. Bryant-Denny Stadium, home ground for the University of Alabama Football, holds just under 102,000.

Perhaps its not fair to compare college football with professional soccer? How about Sunderland AFC? Their ground, the Stadium of Light, holds 49,000. Their 2017 salary bill was estimated at $117M (£90M). Sunderland last won the FA Cup in 1973.

Interest in MLS is low compared with other sports. American Football (which involves engaging a foot with a ball less than 10% of the game) is very popular: over 110 million watched the 2017 Superbowl. By comparison, the equivalent MLS event (the MLS Cup), was watched by 1.1 million. MLS is very popular with Latinos, as we found when we visited BBVA Compass Stadium.

Our seats for the game against Dallas FC were very good, but the atmosphere was pretty dull. MLS is not quite the same as UK football. It is probably more akin to a Working Men's Club game on a Sunday afternoon, where everyone runs around the field together, chasing the ball.

At half-time, a visit to the beer stall resulted in a chance meeting with members of El Batallon (The Battalion), Latino supporters who base themselves in the north end of the stadium:

There's not much watching of the game when you are with El Batallon. The entire 90 minutes is spent singing and playing brass instruments:

The Sunderland contingent was able to teach El Batallon some new instrumentation for future games:

No-one can remember who won the game that night, but it was great fun!