MIAMI-- The romantics are backing the New Orleans Saints but experience and quality points to the Indianapolis Colts as favourites in Sunday's Super Bowl.
Peyton Manning, the undisputed number one quarterback in the game, is looking for his second Super Bowl ring after he, along with 24 other members of the current team, won in Miami against the Chicago Bears at the end of the 2006 season.
The Saints, in contrast, are in their first Super Bowl and with their run coming less then five years after New Orleans was devastated by Hurricane Katrina, they have won the hearts of most neutrals.
Once mocked as 'The Aints', the story of the New Orleans club, 43 years old this year, has been one of miserable failure followed by mediocrity.
It took the team 20 lean years to get a winning record and a place in the playoffs, leading some fans to famously hide their faces behind paper bags.
New Orleans too have a masterful general in quarterback Drew Brees but if they are to produce an upset it is likely to come via their trio of running backs, who have dubbed themselves "The Three Headed Monster", with the explosive pace of the unpredictable Reggie Bush a particular danger.
The expectation is, however, that Manning produces yet another display of his passing genius to cement his status as one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time.
In a curious twist in the plot, Manning is playing against his hometown and a team where his father Archie was a favorite in the 1970s.
The Colts move with devastating speed and efficiency down the field with Manning operating a no-huddle attack, making quick decisions, changing plays before the snap and delivering the precise passes that this season produced his NFL record 10th, 4,000-yard passing campaign.
"I think he has pretty much established himself as really one of the finest that has every played this game and he keeps getting better each and every year," said Colts head coach Jim Caldwell.
Caldwell was an assistant to Tony Dungy when the Colts won three years ago and the modest and unassuming coach has wisely chosen continuity in his first year in charge.
His counterpart Sean Payton is a strikingly different character, confident and chatty off the field and on the sidelines he is one of the most animated coaches in the NFL.
"When it gets to game day he feels like he is one of the players. He is fiery, yelling, shouting and ranting and you know his heart is really in the game," said Saints defensive end Will Smith.
Since taking over in 2006, Payton has carefully improved the roster and transformed the mentality of the team.
The Saints defensive co-ordinator Gregg Williams puts emphasis on "stripping the ball" to force a fumble and has also promised that Manning will receive some "remember-me hits", prompting some to wonder whether New Orleans will overstep the mark in attacking the quarterback.
Certainly Manning will have watched the film of Minnesota Vikings quarterback Brett Favre being repeatedly hit in the NFC Championship game but the way in which Manning quickly releases the ball so early should limit the chances of painfully inflicted sacks.
"I expect a tough defense," said Manning. "I expect it is going to be a challenge to try to move the ball against them. They have excellent players. They are very active.
"They know how to get their hands on the football. All those characteristics combined make it a tough defense, I think we are going to have our work cut out for us."
An estimated 100 million people, a third of the U.S. population, will tune in to watch the game while across the globe hardcore fans will stay up into the night or get up early to watch what should be a fascinating encounter.
WARSAW- The coaches of England, Russia and Germany could all be forgiven for having other things on their minds when they come to the Polish capital for the qualifying round draw of Euro 2012 on Sunday.
England's Italian coach Fabio Capello is dealing with a widespread newspaper allegations about the private life of his captain John Terry.
Russia's Dutch coach Guus Hiddink is considering his future with his contract due to expire in June while Germany's Joachim Loew and the DFB (German FA) have hit a stalemate in negotiations over the extension to his contract after the World Cup finals later this year.
Of the three, Capello and Loew are most likely still to be leading their teams out when the qualifying competition for Euro 2012 -- jointly hosted by Poland and Ukraine -- starts in September.
Russia, who narrowly failed to make the World Cup finals when they lost in a playoff to Slovenia, are amongst the top seeds, along with European champions and world ranked number one Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, England, Portugal, France and Croatia.
The second pot contains Euro 2004 champions Greece, along with fellow World Cup finalists Slovakia, Serbia, Denmark and Switzerland. Czech Republic, Turkey, Romania and Sweden, who all failed to reach South Africa, complete the set.
The draw starts at 1200 CET (1100GMT) on Sunday at Warsaw's Palace of Culture and Science and will focus attention on the first major soccer tournament to be staged in eastern Europe, and one whose preparations have been beset by problems since it was awarded by UEFA to the two nations in March 2007.
Problems with stadium construction, infrastructure, communications and accommodation caused UEFA president Michel Platini at one point to warn the hosts they risked losing the right to stage the event, which is due to take place in June and July 2012 in four cities in each country.
Adam Olkowicz, director of the Euro 2012 told Warsaw's Futbol News this week: "This is the biggest official ceremony ahead of the tournament itself.
"From the government side the Prime Minister Donald Tusk already confirmed he will take part in the draw, we expect other representatives of the government and the parliament."
With Poland and Ukraine qualifying automatically as co-hosts, 51 of UEFA's 53 member associations will take part in the qualifiers. They will be divided into six groups of six teams and three groups of five teams.
The qualifiers will run from September of this year until November 2011 with the winners of the nine groups and the best runner-up qualifying directly.
The eight remaining runners-up will meet in playoffs in November next year with the four winners joining the other 12 nations in the finals.
MIAMI-- New Orleans Saints punter Thomas Morstead has had a dream rookie season in the NFL, reaching the Super Bowl at the first attempt, but his journey to the big game began in the unlikely surrounds of a rugby union field near Grimsby in England.
Morstead's mother Isobel hails from Beelsby, a tiny village in north-east Lincolnshire and it was when her son was on one of his frequent trips to her birthplace that he began playing with an oval ball.
"Whenever I would go over there I would go with my cousins to rugby practices and play with them. That is where I first learned to kick a goofy shaped ball, my uncle taught me to drop kick," Morstead told Reuters.
From learning to kick at Market Rasen and Louth Rugby Union club, as an 11-year-old boy, Morstead went on to enter the college system as a punter.
"That's how I earned my scholarship to college -- I won a bet with the coach and kicked a 60-yard drop kick," he said.
His uncle, Welsh-born Charlie Salmon, remembers well the day he took Morstead to practice.
"He was over on holiday and I was coaching the young lads at Market Rasen and being a Welshman I thought I'd better teach my nephew how to kick properly.
"He got used to the oval ball there, he played one or two games when he was over for a three- or four-week period and he thoroughly enjoyed it," Salmon told Reuters.
"I must admit he did stand out a little bit, he kicked a little bit further but he got mad keen on it. It was difficult to get him to give up the ball and go and play the game rather than just kick it. But he's done pretty well out of it hasn't he?"
Morstead, who is a fan of English soccer club Grimsby Town and even spent a day training with the team a few years ago, certainly has profited from his uncle's lessons.
After impressing with his college, Southern Methodist University in Dallas, he was a fifth-round draft choice for the Saints -- the second punter taken overall.
"I was blessed coming out of college, a lot of teams liked what I can do. I can kick the ball higher and longer than most; I got a great opportunity and I have performed well enough," he said.
Last month he helped the Saints to win their first NFC Championship game in a memorable victory over the Minnesota Vikings in a packed and deafening Louisiana Superdome.
Sunday's game will be for the ultimate prize in the NFL but Morstead says it will be impossible to match the noise of that night.
"I don't think the atmosphere at this game will be what it was against the Vikings. It can't be. That was 99.9 percent Saints fans in a dome, the noise is echoing, it was unbelievable," he said.
Far from the noise on Sunday, Salmon will gather with other members of Morstead's British family at midnight on Sunday to watch the big game, still with some disbelief.
"I was driving home and listening to the radio going on about the Super Bowl being the biggest thing in America and I thought: 'Crikey, I know someone who is playing in it this year'," said Salmon.
SOFIA-- Dutch title hopefuls Twente Enschede signed Bulgaria goalkeeper Nikolay Mihaylov from Liverpool on a permanent deal on Friday.
The 21-year-old, son of Bulgarian Football Union president Borislav Mihaylov, joined Liverpool in 2007 from Levski Sofia but has spent the last three seasons on loan at Twente.
"I didn't want to change club," he told Bulgaria's Darik Radio after signing a three-year deal with the Dutch club. "There was an offer from PSV Eindhoven but I'm glad Liverpool and Twente reached an agreement.
Twente are second in the league, on the same points as leaders PSV.
MADRID-- Diego Forlan scored twice from the penalty spot to help Atletico Madrid to a 4-0 first-leg victory at home to Racing Santander in a King's Cup semi-final on Thursday.
Simao Sabrosa and Jose Antonio Reyes had given the nine-times cup winners a comfortable 2-0 half-time lead before Uruguay striker Forlan crowned a convincing win with two spot kicks in the second half.
On Wednesday, the 2007 winners Sevilla made the most of home advantage to establish a 2-0 first-leg lead over Getafe.
The return legs are next week.
Atletico, one of La Liga's most inconsistent sides, had already hit the post at a corner when Portugal winger Simao lashed home a spectacular volley from a Sergio Aguero cross in the ninth minute.
Racing had been unbeaten since the turn of the year but had struggled to create much danger and just before the break they failed to deal with Simao's low cross allowing Reyes to stroke home the second.
Simao hit a free kick against the upright after the re-start and in the 63rd minute Jurado was brought down for the first penalty, though television replays showed the foul had happened outside the area.
Aguero had been tormenting the Racing defence all evening, and forced another penalty when he was upended as he dribbled towards goal in the 72nd minute.
Forlan made no mistake from the penalty spot once again, and Atletico were guilty of some wasteful finishing near the end.
