The Pittsburgh Steelers have reached the third Super Bowl in a few years and in the playoffs they had the second seeded so they aren’t a big surprise.

The Green Bay Packers reaching the Super Bowl is a little surprise: they started from the Wild Card as the sixth seed, winning three away games. The hadn’t reached the Super Bowl since the ‘9’s, when the leader of the team was Brett Favre, a name now disowned by many fans after he went to play with the hated Minnesota Vikings.

However, these are two of the teams with the greates tradition in the NFL who play the Super Bowl in the Dallas billion dollar stadium that in recent days had to endure the quite extraordinary snowfall in Texas.

The game starts slowly with the attacks struggling to find rhythm. The first three drives end with punts then finally surprisingly the Green Bay Packers score first with a 29 yards touch down pass by Rodgers to Nelson. The situation improves further after the next drive starts with Roethlisberger  intercepted by Collins, who succeds in returning the football for the touch down, bringing the score 14-0, which is also the final score of the first quarter.

Early in the second quarter the Pittsburgh Steelers finally score their first three points with a field goal. The Packers fail to score on their next drive but when the ball goes back to the Steelers Bush intercepts a pass by Roethlisberger. This time they take a couple of downs before scoring another touch down to go on 21-3. The Steelers don’t give up and in the final minute of the second quarter they score a touch down with a Roethlisberger pass to Ward. The first half ends 21-10 for the Packers.

Early in the third quarter the Green Bay Packers fail to score on their first drive and the Pittsburgh Steelers take advantage to score again with a Mendenhall rush for the touch down. The Packers are still not scoring but the Steelers can’t take advantage and miss a field goal so the third quarter ends 21-17 for the Packers.

The fourth quarter begins with a fumble by Mendenhall recovered by the Packers, who build a drive to score a touch down with a pass by Rodgers to Jennings that brings the score 28-17. The Steelers don’t give up and in the next drive score a touch down with a Roethlisberger pass to Wallace. Thanks to a successful 2-point conversion the score is now 28-25. In the next drive the Packers can strike back only partially scoring a field goal for the 31-25. By now there are just a little more than two minutes left in the Super Bowl and the Steelers have to score a touch down but the Packers defense is up to the task and Pittsburgh can’t even gain a first down, leaving the ball for Green Bay to kneel in the last minute waiting to celebrate the victory with a final score of 31-25.

The Green Bay Packers’ victory is certainly a surprise but totally deserved. In Super Bowl XXXII the Packers were involved in a negative surprise when they were defeated by the Denver Broncos and for the first time the AFC representative had won the Super Bowl after 13 consecutive wins for the NFC representative. This year the Packers have redeemed that defeat with a positive surprise.

During the Super Bowl cornerback Charles Woodson and receiver Donald Driver got injured but the team kept on playing well. We all expected the Steelers defense, eventually the Packers defense prevailed.

[ad name=”Google Adsense 300″]

Football is very complex but there are some very simple elements that help decipher a game: turnovers affect a team very much and three turnovers for the Steelers eventually made the difference.

Everyone expected to see Ben Roethlisberger take control of the game, instead it was the Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers (picture ©Chad Davis)  who was elected MVP of Super Bowl XLV. Actually this was more than ever a team performance and now we wonder what the Packers will do in the future.

Green Bay is a small market and the Packers are literally the team of ordinary people as many thousands of people own a little part of them. The current situation with the NFL regulations concerning salaries and free agency makes it difficult to understand if and how the team can be reinforced but these are problems to be addressed in the coming months: in the meantime the Packers can celebrate their fairy tale!