A decade or so ago, Steve Nicol and his wife were walking along the street in Manchester, England, when they were approached by two men. "Are you Stevie Nicol?" one of the men asked. "Yeah," Nicol responded. "How ya doing?" For a few seconds, the man stood there in silence. Then, as if making up his mind about something, he said, "Ya fuckin’ scouse bastard!" and walked away.

Such are the joys of being an English soccer star.

Actually, Nicol is Scottish. You can tell this just by looking at him — the sandy eyebrows, the pink skin. And any doubts about his heritage disappear entirely when he opens his mouth: "Tha gey jist flupped," he says of the guy in Manchester, his accent so broad it sounds like a parody of itself.

In the world of English soccer, though, you are identified more by whom you play for than where you’re from. The fact that Nicol spent the bulk of his playing career with Liverpool FC will, for many, forever mark him as a scouse bastard (scouse = from Liverpool). Not that Nicol minds. Sitting in his small, stark office — "my cell" — in the bowels of the new Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, he recalls that long-ago encounter with a chuckle. "It’s nice to be recognized," he says.

Steve Nicol doesn’t get sworn at much these days. In fact, as the interim coach of the New England Revolution, he doesn’t get much recognition at all. In the UK, Nicol remains something of a "big-time Charlie," as he puts it. After all, during the 14 years he played there (1981-1995), Liverpool was one of the best teams in the world — indeed, one of the finest the world has ever seen. But that doesn’t mean too much around here. In sports-saturated New England — with its Nomar Garciaparras and its Tom Bradys and its Antoine Walkers — there’s little bold-name potential in being associated with soccer.

Nowhere is the sport’s second-class status more apparent than at Gillette Stadium, which bristles with New England Patriots insignia but barely bothers to indicate that it is also home to the region’s sole professional-soccer franchise. At the stadium gift shop, you’ll find a dizzying array of Patriots gear — from teddy bears and golf bags to high-end jewelry. You can barely turn your head without seeing the face of Tom Brady grinning back at you. If you’re in the market for a Stevie Nicol bobble-head doll, however, you’re flat out of luck.

In fairness to Nicol, one of the reasons he’s not a household name in New England is that he hasn’t been here very long — he was hired as the Revs’ assistant coach in January, and was named interim coach in May, after the team sacked Fernando Clavijo. Then there’s the undeniable fact that the Revs have so far failed to achieve anything noteworthy. Indeed, as much as it may hurt to say so, Nicol finds himself at the helm of a team that, in its seven-year stint in Major League Soccer (MLS), has persistently proven itself to be — to put it bluntly — crap.

"We’re like the Red Sox, consistently accomplishing nothing," says Monty Rodrigues, president of the Midnight Riders, the unofficial Revolution fan club. Frankly, it’s worse than that. Since MLS was established in 1996, the Revs have qualified for the playoffs twice — which doesn’t sound so bad until you realize that MLS awards eight playoff spots in a 12-team league (this year it’s 10 teams; Miami and Tampa Bay folded). The Revs have never won a trophy and have never finished a season with a winning record.

As of now, thanks to a late rally under Nicol (five games undefeated), the Revs have climbed from their familiar second-to-last spot in the league to a joint-sixth position — giddy heights indeed for this team. On Saturday, September 21, the Revs take on their archrivals, the NY-NJ MetroStars, at Gillette. While a victory in that game would ensure the team a place in the playoffs, long-suffering Revolution fans are not likely to break out the bunting just yet.

"Why the Revs under-perform so consistently is a mystery to all fans," says Sean Donahue, who runs a Revolution-fan Web site. "It’s ridiculous."

A couple of years back, to protest the team’s apparent dedication to failure, a contingent of Revs fans started turning up at games with paper bags over their heads (the shame). Should the team fail to make the playoffs this year, that dissatisfaction may have more serious consequences. "The fans seem to be getting more frustrated than ever," says Donahue. "Some seven-year season-ticket holders have said they won’t renew next year, and many other fans have already stopped going to the games."

Since 1996, the Revolution’s home attendance has hovered around 18,000 — one of the highest averages in the country. Recently, though, the average home gate has dropped to 15,000. At a recent game against DC United — the only team in the league with a worse record than the Revs — the 15,000-strong crowd seemed almost comically dwarfed by the new 68,000-capacity stadium. Furthermore, put a crowd of that size into a venue that big and you have acoustic problems — when the Revs scored against DC (they won 3-0), it seemed each goal was greeted with more of a murmur than a roar. For Steve Nicol, it’s a far cry from the large, passionate, vocal crowds who used to cheer him on at Anfield, the home ground of Liverpool.

"I don’t have a problem with that," Nicol says. "It’s all about having the mindset of being a professional. It’s easy to be a professional when you play in front of 60,000 people every week. But the challenge is being able to turn up when there’s one man and his dog there and to perform to the best of your abilities. To me, that’s what being a real pro is about, and I consider myself a real pro."

Besides, he adds, "I’m doing what I love to do."

You get the sense that Steve Nicol is not the kind of person to be easily disheartened. At 40, he still has the bubbly energy that marked his playing career. He looks much the same as he did back then, too: the thatch of red hair is still intact; the blunt features and frequent, cheeky grin still give him the appearance of an overgrown schoolboy. And Nicol has the temperament to match: he launches rapid-fire quips, does little song-and-dance numbers mid conversation, and is given to using, let’s say, colorful language. When asked what he’d do if his career with the Revolution didn’t pan out, Nicol grins, leans back against the wall, puts an imaginary gun in his mouth, and pulls the trigger.

Levity aside, doubts surrounding Nicol’s future with the New England Revolution are no laughing matter. Although the Revs have recently strung a few good results together, keeping the team’s playoff hopes alive, Nicol’s record since taking over (nine wins, 10 losses, one draw) is not what you’d call stellar — certainly not good enough to guarantee his survival at the club. "Everybody always thinks, ‘Aw, new manager, aw,’ " he says. "But when does anybody ever take over a job like this because the team’s doing fucking brilliant? We’ve been down near the bottom for the whole season. Obviously, there are certain things needing to be done."

True, perhaps, but the New England Revolution brass is notorious for ditching the team’s coaches at the first sign of trouble, and Nicol is fully aware that his chances of being named head coach next year could very well hinge on whether or not the Revs qualify for the playoffs. "I would like to think that’s not the case," he says. "Unofficially, I think that if we get into the playoffs I’ll be safe. The fact is, though, I could be sitting here saying, ‘Okay, lads, just run around a bit,’ and then for some reason we qualify for the playoffs. Does that mean I deserve the job? No. If you’ve got a crap manager and the team’s crap and the training is crap, then it’s pretty straightforward — what’s the point of keeping somebody? But I’m trying to put something in place here. What I’m trying to do takes time; it doesn’t happen overnight. Hopefully they’ll see that. I’m trying to build a successful team."

Certainly, Nicol is no stranger to soccer success. During his time at Liverpool, he won pretty much every major honor there is: four League Championships, three FA Cups, and one European Cup. Nicol also made 27 appearances as part of the Scottish national team, including a run in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. An even greater asset than his illustrious professional career, however, is the fact that — like so many working-class Brits — soccer is in Nicol’s blood.