Super Bowl Sunday - Steelers vs Cardinals

American football is BIG in this country. The ultimate battle of the two best teams of the season is called the Super Bowl, always played on a Super Bowl Sunday. The Super Bowl is officially the championship game of the National Football League (NFL). Over the years it has become the most-watched US television broadcast of the year. For the Europeans among you, it's like the Champions League final in soccer, or should I say football..?

Yesterday was that Sunday and in the final were the Pittsburgh Steelers against the the Arizona Cardinals (or 'Cards'), the game was played in Tampa, Florida. Nice weather, very exciting game!

There's two ways of watching 'the Game' (if you're not one of the very lucky few ones sitting in the stadium), at a friends' house or in a bar where they organise a Super Bowl party. My first Super Bowl game I choose the first option. A Dutch friend and I biked all the way downtown (East Village) and went to see the game at the home of one of his friends. We brought some beer and enjoyed the pre-game entertainment while discussing the favourites and the game rules. Together with 8 others we had a great night watching the game in a first row seat...

The Steelers were favourite, the Cards the underdog. I had chosen the Cardinals as my favourite team as they only won the Super Bowl once...the Steelers did it more than 5 times. After an extremely exciting 4th and last quarter, the score was 20 - 23 for the Cardinals. But with 35 seconds to go the Steelers made a fenomenal TOUCHDOWN which brought them the 43rd Super Bowl with a 27-23 score! No matter how disappointing this was, I had a great night with some Budweisers, Chicken Wings and Pizza, the main ingredients for a real American Football night.