Santa Clara (United States) (AFP) – The Super Bowl may be as American as apple pie, but a surprising number of this year’s stars hail from overseas. Competing in Sunday’s NFL showpiece will be an Australian punter, a New Zealand-born running back, and a Venezuelan kicker. The Seattle Seahawks have a British coach on their staff, while a German tackle and a Dutch tight end bolster the New England Patriots’ practice squad.
The game’s best-known international star is two-time All-Pro Seahawks punter Michael Dickson. Part of a growing pipeline of Australians who have converted their kicking skills from Aussie rules football to gridiron, he is the NFL’s highest paid punter. Dickson could use his near-uncatchable spinning “banana kick” to give Seattle an edge Sunday by forcing the Patriots to begin drives deep in their own half. He recently told Australia’s ABC News how time at the Sydney Swans academy “definitely helped me in my transition” to the NFL. “The access we had and the knowledge we had to be a professional — that program helped immensely,” said the eighth-season Seahawks veteran.
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Earlier this week, a helicopter buzzed above Dickson’s Sydney hometown with a giant flag bearing the number “12” in reference to a nickname for Seahawks fans. Patriotic pride has also underlaid British media coverage of Aden Durde, who improbably learnt American football in London’s Finsbury Park and ended up as a defensive coordinator for the Seahawks. Durde and his older brother caught NFL fever when their single mother brought home a video of the Chicago Bears’ 1986 Super Bowl-winning team. He played in the now-defunct NFL Europe before earning a coaching internship with the Dallas Cowboys. “It’s a little surreal right now,” Durde told Britain’s BBC this week. American football “has had a huge impact on my life, and I hope it happens to some other people” back home, he said.
The Seahawks team also boasts several players of Polynesian descent, including backup running back George Holani, who was born in New Zealand to Tongan parents but moved to the United States as a young child. On the opposing team is Andy Borregales, days away from becoming the first Venezuelan in a Super Bowl.
The rookie kicker was born in Caracas, but at the age of two, his family moved to Miami, where he fell in love with the sport under the guidance of his older brother Jose. Borregales was drafted by the Patriots in the sixth round of last year’s draft and quickly earned the starting position. He told reporters this week that “being here means everything, and not only for my country but for all of Latin America.” “Being that person that little kids can look up to and admire is a feeling you can never imagine.”
New England also boasts Germany’s Lorenz Metz and Dutch footballer Thomas Odukoya. Both are products of the NFL’s International Player Pathway Program, which was set up in 2017 to tap exceptional overseas players and grow the sport globally. That international expansion was also a key motivation behind the selection of this year’s Super Bowl performer Bad Bunny, who is expected to provide the first half-time show sung entirely in Spanish.
© 2024 AFP
