With the Super Bowl upon us, we take a look at the top comparisons between franchises from American football and the top European powers
It's Super Bowl Sunday next week!
The NFL championship game this year sees the New England Patriots, looking to win thier third title in five years and sixth in the Tom Brady era, taking on the Los Angeles Rams.
With the biggest game on the American football schedule set to kickoff in a matter of days, we thought it would be entertaining to draw comparison between NFL teams and the top European football powers.
There's plenty of room for debate and the similarities are more apples-to-orages than apples-to-apples, but you can draw plenty of comparisons between organizations across the two sports.
Without further ado, we bring you Goal's list of the top 10 comparisons between NFL franchises and your favortie European football clubs.
Getty Images1Paris Saint-Germain – Carolina Panthers
If such thing as the newly rich exists in the NFL, the Carolina Panthers are probably the best example. The Panthers began play in 1995, but made just four playoff appearances through their first 14 seasons. But, unlike PSG, it wasn't money from a new ownership group that lifted the team, it was the drafting of a superstar in 2011, when Carolina took Cam Newton with the first overall pick in the NFL draft.
That same year Paris Saint-Germain was bought Oryx Qatar Sports Investments (QSI), and like the Panthers their fortunes turned quickly.
The Panthers with Newton have now made the playoffs four times in six years, with three division titles one Super Bowl appearance, while PSG has won five titles in Ligue 1.
The big prize is still there to be chased for both teams, but in Neymar PSG may have found the global superstar they need to win the Champions League, and the Panthers look primed to stay in contention in the NFL for as long as Newton can stay healthy.
AdvertisementGetty Images2Manchester United – Minnesota Vikings
We get it, this is the biggest reach of the group.
You almost have to throw out the Alex Ferguson years to make this compute, because the sustained greatest of the Red Devils through that period simplay can't be matched, but hear us out.
These two proud franchises fell on hard times in recent years, but have both had something of a resurgence based around conservative play and brilliant defensive play. The Vikings are loaded on the defensive side of the ball and, like Manchester United, have plenty of exciting young players who can put up points.
The Vikes fell short in the NFL playoffs this season, but have all the building blocks to bring home a championship in the next few years, and while Manchester United isn't likely to win a trophy in 2018, anything seems possible under interim coach Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
Getty Images3Leicester City – Baltimore Ravens
Two random champions with star players who could do no wrong in their charge to the title, Leicester City and the Baltimore Ravens fit as the two biggest Cinderella stories of the past decade and a half.
Only once in the last 15 years has the AFC title been won by a quarterback not named Tom Brady, Peyton Manning or Ben Roethlisberger, and just one team not named Chelsea, Manchester United or Manchester City has claimed the Premier League in the last 13 seasons.
Joe Flacco pulled off "the Mile High miracle" to top Manning and the Broncos before routing Brady's Patriots in the AFC title game during the Ravens march to the Super Bowl title following the 2012 season. Jaime Vardy's 24-goal haul for the Foxes during the 2015/16 Premier League season, including a record run of scoring in eleven consecutive Premier League games, sparked Leicester to one of the most improbable title wins in the history of team sports.
Neither player has managed to reach the same heights in subsequent years, and losses of other stars around them have limited their teams to being also-rans.
It's not apples to apples here. Leicester City's title win came over clubs with much bigger budgets and the odds of it ever happening again are slim at best, while the Ravens play in a league where the rules promote parity and could easily become a contender again in the near future.
Getty Images4Juventus – Denver Broncos
The comparisons between Juventus and the Denver Broncos stem largely from how both teams played in 2015.
Juventus' run to the Champions League final that year was built around a fierce commitment to defending as a team and a conservative but opportunistic attacking approach while the Denver Broncos leaned on a dominant defensive unit throughout the 2015 NFL season, winning Super Bowl 50 in February of 2016.
Both teams also relied heavily on newly acquired star players who were on the downside of their careers. Carlos Tevez lead the line for the Serie A champions that season in what was his last run as a true force at the top of the global game. The Broncos had Peyton Manning, in the last year of his storied career, under center.
The biggest difference here, aside from playing completely different sports, is that the Broncos defense proved too much for Cam Newton and the Carolina Panthers in the Super Bowl, while Juventus couldn't keep pace with Barcelona's attack in the Champions League final.