But our Stateside sporting cousins are far from discouraged. In recent months, the NHL, NBA and NFL have staged games on British shores. This weekend, the BBC has deemed the NFL’s showpiece game, the Super Bowl, important enough to be shown live. The game will be available to a potential record-breaking global television audience of one billion viewers and, in addition to winning the Vince Lombardi trophy, one of the teams also has the chance to reach an unprecedented sporting milestone.

Patriots aim for perfection

The New England Patriots stand on the verge of sporting immortality. Victory in the Super Bowl will complete a perfect season of 19 nines and no defeats, American sport’s holy grail. Only one team, the 1972 Miami Dolphins, have achieved the feat but in those days the NFL regular season was only 14 games long.

This season, the Patriots were perfect through their 16 regular season games and brushed aside the San Diego Chargers and the Jacksonville Jaguars in their two playoff games to become AFC champions.

The Patriots are led by head coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady. Belichick is a two-time NFL Coach of the Year who favours an expansive offensive game reliant on passing. In Brady, he has the best possible player to execute this strategy and a man considered to be one of the greatest quarterbacks ever to play the game. Brady, who dates supermodel Gisele Bundchen, threw an NFL record 50 touchdown passes and a total of 4,806 passing yards in the regular season, the third-best total in history.

Giant outsiders

Standing between the Patriots and perfection are the New York Giants. The team, who defeated the Miami Dolphins at Wembley Stadium last October, limped into the play-offs with a mediocre record of 10 wins and 6 defeats. However, away victories against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Dallas Cowboys and the Green Bay Packers (in the third coldest game in NFL history) made them NFC champions and earned them their Super Bowl berth.

Despite being massive underdogs, the Giants carry a great deal of optimism into their clash with the Patriots. The teams met in a regular season game in December in an entertaining game that the Giants narrowly lost 38-35. The neutral venue of Arizona’s University of Phoenix Stadium will not faze a Giants team that has won an NFL record 10 consecutive games on the road.

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The Giants’ fate lies in the hands of the quarterback Eli Manning and defensive leader Michael Strahan. Manning cuts a similar figure to Formula 1 racer Ralf Schumacher in that, thanks to the success of his older brother Peyton (who plays quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts), he’s not even the best NFL player in his own family. His four-year career has been plagued by inconsistency and erratic performances in pressure situations. But the 2008 play-offs have seen him come of age. In his three post season performances, Manning has thrown 4 touchdown passes and, crucially, no interceptions.

15-year veteran Strahan will be a pivotal figure in the Super Bowl because it will be his responsibility to fluster, rush and hopefully sack Pats quarterback Brady. But, as their perfect record proves, stopping Brady and the New England offence is easier said than done. Because of this, the Patriots will start the game as clear favourites and it will take a shock of major proportions to keep them from completing the perfect season and achieving sporting immortality.