Peyton Manning’s record-setting Denver Broncos pass attack will face the Seattle Seahawks in next month’s Super Bowl showdown after both teams captured tense home play-off triumphs on Sunday.
Seattle, who boast the best defence in NFL, forced three turnovers in the fourth quarter to beat the San Francisco 49ers 23-17 in the National Conference final while Manning led the Broncos over the New England Patriots 26-16 in the American Conference final.
After sharing the NFL’s best record at 13-3 in the regular season, the Broncos and Seahawks will meet in Super Bowl 48 on February 2 in East Rutherford, NJ, just outside New York City.
It will be Denver’s seventh trip to the Super Bowl but the first since the Broncos’ only wins in 1998 and 1999, and the second visit for the Seahawks, who lost to Pittsburgh in 2006.
“This feels even sweeter,” Seahawks owner Paul Allen said.
The Seahawks trailed until the fourth quarter, when Russell Wilson connected with Jermaine Kearse on a 35-yard touchdown pass to put Seattle ahead to stay and the hosts took away the ball from the 49ers three times.
“This is really special,” said Seahawks coach Pete Carroll. “This team was ready to finish. They knew we weren’t in the lead. That didn’t matter. They were going to come out here and do what they needed to do.”
Manning, who set single-season NFL passing yardage and touchdown records last month for the most prolific scoring offence in NFL history, completed 32-of-43 passes for 400 yards and two touchdowns.
“It’s very rewarding when you put in so much hard work and it pays off with the win in a big game,” Manning said.
“We’ve kept our nose to the grindstone, kept persevering and it feels great to get this win.”
New England’s Tom Brady leads the all-time rivalry with Manning 10-5 but fell to 2-2 in their play-off meetings, which in each prior case were taken by the eventual Super Bowl champion.
“We just didn’t make enough plays,” Brady said. “We dug a pretty big hole and they played really well. Peyton played great. They just made more plays than we did. They were certainly the better team today.”
The 49ers, who lost last year’s Super Bowl to Baltimore, saw their hopes end on Malcolm Smith’s interception with 22 seconds remaining.
“It was a 15-round fight,” 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh said. “It was a great fight by our guys. A man can be destroyed. He can’t be defeated.”
Broncos coach John Fox, who underwent heart surgery in November and steered Carolina to the Super Bowl 10 years ago, said: “I couldn’t be prouder of a group of men in my life.”
Denver’s Matt Prater kicked four field goals while Manning flipped touchdown passes of 1 yard to Jacob Tamme and 3 yards to Demaryius Thomas.
The Patriots, in their first road play-off game since 2007, fell behind 13-3 at half-time and Brady, who rallied the Patriots from a 24-0 deficit to defeat Denver in the regular season for the greatest comeback of his career, struggled most of the day against Denver’s defenders.
New England pulled within 13 points on Brady’s 7-yard touchdown pass to Julian Edelman with 9:26 remaining but Prater added a 54-yard field goal for a 26-10 Denver edge.
Brady scored on a 5-yard run with 3:07 to play, but Denver’s defence stopped Shane Vereen’s 2-point conversion run attempt to create the final margin and the Broncos ran out the clock from there.
At Seattle, the 49ers took a 10-0 lead on Phil Dawson’s 25-yard field goal and a 1-yard Anthony Dixon touchdown plunge that was set up by a 58-yard run by quarterback Colin Kaepernick.
In front of a raucous Seattle crowd, Steven Hauschka kicked a 32-yard field goal to pull the Seahawks within 10-3 at half-time.
Seattle’s Marshawn Lynch broke up the middle and ran 40 yards for a touchdown to lift the hosts level.
San Francisco responded when Kaepernick connected with Anquan Boldin on a 26-yard touchdown pass to put the 49ers ahead 17-10.
Hauschka kicked a 40-yard field goal to pull Seattle within 17-13 after three quarters, then Wilson tossed the go-ahead TD pass to Kearse and Hauschka added a 47-yard field goal for the final points.
Kaepernick drove the 49ers toward a potential winning touchdown late in the game but Seattle’s Richard Sherman, who led the NFL with eight interceptions, deflected a pass into Smith’s hands to end the threat.
“That’s as sweet as it gets,” Sherman said. “We knew we had to finish it off.”
The NFL championship spectacle will be the first in Super Bowl history staged outdoors in a cold-climate city.
The weather forecast is for the coldest conditions in Super Bowl history with a chance of rain or snow showers and temperatures between 37 and 25 degrees Fahrenheit (3 to minus 4 Celsius).
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
Ziina users can donate to relief efforts in Beirut
Ziina users will be able to use the app to help relief efforts in Beirut, which has been left reeling after an August blast caused an estimated $15 billion in damage and left thousands homeless. Ziina has partnered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to raise money for the Lebanese capital, co-founder Faisal Toukan says. “As of October 1, the UNHCR has the first certified badge on Ziina and is automatically part of user's top friends' list during this campaign. Users can now donate any amount to the Beirut relief with two clicks. The money raised will go towards rebuilding houses for the families that were impacted by the explosion.”
The five pillars of Islam
1. Fasting
2. Prayer
3. Hajj
4. Shahada
5. Zakat
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
North Pole stats
Distance covered: 160km
Temperature: -40°C
Weight of equipment: 45kg
Altitude (metres above sea level): 0
Terrain: Ice rock
South Pole stats
Distance covered: 130km
Temperature: -50°C
Weight of equipment: 50kg
Altitude (metres above sea level): 3,300
Terrain: Flat ice
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
PROFILE BOX:
Company/date started: 2015
Founder/CEO: Rami Salman, Rishav Jalan, Ayush Chordia
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Technology, Sales, Voice, Artificial Intelligence
Size: (employees/revenue) 10/ 100,000 downloads
Stage: 1 ($800,000)
Investors: Eight first-round investors including, Beco Capital, 500 Startups, Dubai Silicon Oasis, Hala Fadel, Odin Financial Services, Dubai Angel Investors, Womena, Arzan VC
Biog
Mr Kandhari is legally authorised to conduct marriages in the gurdwara
He has officiated weddings of Sikhs and people of different faiths from Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Russia, the US and Canada
Father of two sons, grandfather of six
Plays golf once a week
Enjoys trying new holiday destinations with his wife and family
Walks for an hour every morning
Completed a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Loyola College, Chennai, India
2019 is a milestone because he completes 50 years in business
The specs
Engine: 77.4kW all-wheel-drive dual motor
Power: 320bhp
Torque: 605Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh219,000
On sale: Now
South Africa squad
: Faf du Plessis (captain), Hashim Amla, Temba Bavuma, Quinton de Kock (wkt), Theunis de Bruyn, AB de Villiers, Dean Elgar, Heinrich Klaasen (wkt), Keshav Maharaj, Aiden Markram, Morne Morkel, Chris Morris, Wiaan Mulder, Lungi Ngidi, Duanne Olivier, Vernon Philander and Kagiso Rabada.
The lowdown
Badla
Rating: 2.5/5
Produced by: Red Chillies, Azure Entertainment
Director: Sujoy Ghosh
Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Taapsee Pannu, Amrita Singh, Tony Luke
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
FA Cup quarter-final draw
The matches will be played across the weekend of 21 and 22 March
Sheffield United v Arsenal
Newcastle v Manchester City
Norwich v Derby/Manchester United
Leicester City v Chelsea
The burning issue
The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
Read part four: an affection for classic cars lives on
Read part three: the age of the electric vehicle begins
Read part one: how cars came to the UAE
yallacompare profile
Date of launch: 2014
Founder: Jon Richards, founder and chief executive; Samer Chebab, co-founder and chief operating officer, and Jonathan Rawlings, co-founder and chief financial officer
Based: Media City, Dubai
Sector: Financial services
Size: 120 employees
Investors: 2014: $500,000 in a seed round led by Mulverhill Associates; 2015: $3m in Series A funding led by STC Ventures (managed by Iris Capital), Wamda and Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority; 2019: $8m in Series B funding with the same investors as Series A along with Precinct Partners, Saned and Argo Ventures (the VC arm of multinational insurer Argo Group)
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%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EEngine%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E2.0-litre%20four-cyl%20turbo%20%2B%20mild%20hybrid%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPower%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E204hp%20at%205%2C800rpm%20%2B23hp%20hybrid%20boost%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ETorque%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E320Nm%20at%201%2C800rpm%20%2B205Nm%20hybrid%20boost%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ETransmission%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E9-speed%20auto%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFuel%20consumption%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E7.3L%2F100km%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EOn%20sale%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ENovember%2FDecember%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPrice%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EFrom%20Dh205%2C000%20(estimate)%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
