See, I told you I’d have some sports here soon. (And by you, I do mean you. Not very many people read this; I know who you are).

Anyway, what is a sports translator? The idea comes from Men in Blazers, a soccer podcasting and writing duo of Brits who try to educate us Yanks about the beautiful game. The translator in question takes an American sports team you support and finds the equivalent European soccer team. It’s the lift that helps you onto the bandwagon. Here I’m taking their idea to the next logical step: matching the worlds’ most popular soccer tournament (the Champions League) with America’s beautiful obsession (The NFL).

To catch you all up, here is the Champions League in a nutshell. It’s strictly European teams, 32 to be exact, and entry to the “tournament” is determined by each club’s performance last year. For example, the top four teams in the English domestic league from the 2011-2012 are entered into the 2012-2013 Champions League. The top 3 French Teams from 2011-2012 are entered into the 2012-2013 season as well, and so on. The number of teams each country is allotted is determined by how good that country’s league is, as calculated by a bunch of formulas and junk. (If you want to see exactly how this is calculated and how many teams each country gets, click through here).

As a casual fan, all you need to know is that the Champions’ League contains 32 teams from all over Europe. These 32 teams are broken into groups of 4. The teams in these groups play each other twice (at both teams’ home stadiums) and the top 2 advance from each group. Then the final 16 play in a ‘regular’ tournament with single elimination until there is a winner (except that it’s home and home aggregate with away goals as a tie breaker. But whatever, don’t worry about that part yet).

Finally, let’s turn back to the translating part. In each post I’ll match a group of 4 to an NFL division, which also contains 4 teams. Then I’ll equate the teams, predict the winners, etc. Simple as that. A few disclaimers before I do so though..

1. The NFL has a salary cap, European soccer does not. So the later will be more lopsided than the former. Also some of the countries sending teams to the Champions League are much smaller than their opponents’ nations (I’m looking at you Cyprus). This leads to some very exciting home atmospheres, as millionaire athletes from Spain (for example) have to take a 6 hour bus to reach the stadium of their Ukrainian opponents.

2. Champions League groups are randomly selected and differ every year. This doesn’t leave the same room for simmering, long-standing rivalries that the NFL enjoys. Instead, Champions League fans get to hate each other for entertaining nationalist reasons. For example, English fans despise Italian soccer players for their (perceived) showboating and diving. Russians hate Turks, Germans hate Spaniards, and so forth. Often this turns to most of England blindly supporting their “representative” against the foreign side, even if most of these fans usually despise the team they’re rooting for. The American equivalent would be Alabama fans cheering for LSU to beat Texas, based upon “SEC pride”.

3. The Champions League is sponsored by Heineken, and the NFL by Bud Light. Our football watching experiences are inextricably linked with beer commercials, while Champions League viewing results in the Champions League anthem (sponsored by Heineken) being branded into your forebrain.

4. The above three are built in excuses for why my translator will be flawed. Self-handicapping is the best.

Excellent. So, I think that gives you a taste of what’s to come. Please check in soon as I’ll be telling you why Group A is the AFC West of Europe. (Bad news for Raider fans, you guys are the Croatian team)