Within the glistening glass facade of Gillette Stadium, two of the most successful football coaches in America plot their respective conquests, separated only by a succession of corridors and a pitch nourished by the kind of rainfall which made the Irish feel so at home in Boston.

In the reception of the luxurious corporate offices, past glories are commemorated, trophies, balls and videos hammering home to each and every visitor that this is a place where second-best is barely worthy of a mention, let alone recall.

Bill Belichick and Steve Nicol may co-habit amid the same organisation, but their existences are worlds apart. One is America's pre-eminent gridiron guru, lauded grudgingly at times, but still a household face despite the recent failure of New England Patriots to add to their greedy haul of Super Bowls.

The other, by his own admission, can still safely walk untroubled down the main street in Foxboro, the town he calls home, even though New England Revolution have been Major League Soccer's most consistent power under his watch. What unites them however, salary slip aside, is that their ultimate paymaster, Robert Kraft has one over-riding mission: achievement on the field of play.

Nicol's furnishings within the whitewashed walls of his base camp came, you suspect, on a lower budget than his counterpart's, but it is a cosy home from home for the Scot, and his assistant Paul Mariner. The tactics board is covered with ideas to become reality in the new season, which kicked off at the weekend, MLS glassware sits on the shelves while a freshly-brewed cup of tea underlines that even if you can take the boy out of Ayrshire, via Liverpool, the basics remain unchanged.

"I came with an open mind," he recalls of his arrival in 1999 when he was lured Stateside to be player-coach of the minor league Boston Bulldogs. "I wasn't expecting anything. You hope it is going to be a good standard, but I didn't have any preconceived ideas. I just got on with it.

"My outlook was that whichever country you go to, whether you're playing or coaching, your outlook is your own. I just did the things I believed in."

The mentality forged at Anfield, where he won one European Cup, four League titles and three FA Cups, has been an influence. But Nicol, now 46, is very much his own coach, immediately recognising that America had its own approach at both grassroots level and within the still-fledgling professional game.

He is an admirer of the sense of potential, but also aware of the burden of expectation. Growing up in Irvine, it was jumpers for goalposts and a kickabout after school. Within the extraordinary US system which has regimented leagues for any sport imaginable at local, state and national levels, there is often, he says, an absence of the carefree spirit which first captivated his attention.

"A lot of that is to do with the fact everything's so organised," he said. "They're paying to play and, because of that, parents seem to think they have some say in the matter. It puts more pressure on the kids to perform instead of just going out to have fun."

That aside, his son - to use an Americanism - had a blast playing the kind of football which might have interested Belichick, while that initial six-month toe in the water agreed by Nicol and his wife has turned into a prolonged residency. Does he miss Scotland? Not especially.

"I love going back, but I've been out of Scotland longer than I was in it," he said.

"I was 19 when I left, so the Scotland I see now is a different place. Of course, you think of it, but home is where you lie in your bed at night. People talk about the bagpipes to me now and again, and you can get nostalgic - things you might see every day if you lived there - but no more than that."

And why not embrace the culture? Not the one soaked up by the Beckhams on the opposing coast. Nicol's version incorporates membership of Red Sox Nation and an adopted sense of Bostonian pride. Plus the one dictated from the big boss upstairs, a culture which the one-time scourge of wingers has no problems in assimilating to.

"We've been in four MLS Cup finals and a US Open Cup final in six years. We've lost all of the four finals, but despite the fact we've not quite captured the big one here, the success we have had has made it all the more enjoyable. That makes it easier. If you're losing games, it's no fun whether you're at Liverpool, Ayr United or New England. When you win - greatest game in the world."