Old-time New England sports fans may have a dilemma on Super Bowl Sunday. For those who have been NFL fans for more than 50 years, the New York Giants were the team of choice because the Patriots didn’t begin play in the American Football League until 1960.

They may have passed that Giants fandom on to their children and grandchildren. New York was the closest team to New England until then.

And the Patriots didn’t exactly take the AFL by storm with those funky uniforms.

They didn’t even have their own facility until 1971 when Schaeffer Stadium was built for $6 million.

The Pats were the hobos of the AFL, playing home games at Boston University, Harvard, Fenway Park and, in 1968, they actually opened the season at the University of Alabama’s Legion Field against the eventual Super Bowl champion New York Jets and former Crimson Tide quarterback Joe Namath.

They moved into Gillette Stadium in 2002.

So now the two teams meet in Super Bowl XLII in Glendale, Ariz. It is one of those Super Bowls the NFL drools over. A team chasing perfection against one of the cornerstones of the NFL in the biggest TV market on the planet.

The Giants are the rags-to-riches team, having eliminated the Nos. 1, 2 and 4 seeds in the NFC, all on the road.

And they thoroughly deserve to be in the Super Bowl by accomplishing what they have in the playoffs.

They are the best team in the NFC at this time. Period.

In addition, the two teams met in a scintillating and controversial regular-season finale in which the Patriots rallied from a 12-point second-half deficit to win 38-35.

The reason the game was controversial was Giants coach Tom Coughlin elected to play his starters the entire time rather than rest them. The game was meaningless for the Giants while it meant extending the unbeaten streak for the Patriots.

As it turned out, the confidence gained by the Giants in that performance probably played a vital role in their march to the Super Bowl.

The matchups are intriguing.

Tom Brady, the sixth-round draft choice who has led the Patriots to three Super Bowl championships, against the much-maligned Eli Manning, who is playing the best football of his career.

Brady was the league’s Most Valuable Player while Manning was the league’s most criticized quarterback, along with Chicago’s Rex Grossman, until the Patriots game and the playoffs.

The game features the NFL’s best offensive line (New England) against one of the league’s best defensive lines.

You have a duel of running back tandems.

New England’s Laurence Maroney has run for 122 yards in each playoff game and Kevin Faulk has been Mr. Clutch in third-down situations.

The Giants have the daunting running back duo of pile-driving Brandon Jacobs and scatback Ahmad Bradshaw.

You’ve got stoic Patriots coach Bill Belichick against animated Giants coach Coughlin.

Then you have the fan rivalry. It’s Red Sox vs. Yankees, Bruins vs. Rangers, Celtics vs. Knicks.

It’s Fifth Avenue vs. Massachusetts Avenue, “Law and Order” vs. “Boston Legal,” Y.A. Tittle vs. Babe Parilli, Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino vs. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, overstuffed deli sandwiches vs. clam “chowdah” and baked beans, the Beastie Boys vs. Aerosmith, Sex and the City vs. Ally McBeal.

It’s going to be a gem.

lmahoney@bangordailynews.net

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