Barely a month has passed since Cooper Manning invited his friend Drew Brees over to his house in New Orleans to watch the Philadelphia Eagles take on the Dallas Cowboys in the first round of the NFL play-offs. Brees is the New Orleans Saints' talismanic quarter back and Manning is the brother of grid-iron legends Peyton and Eli. The pair are such good friends that the man dubbed 'Breesus' by the Saints' faithful didn't mind Cooper's children bothering him throughout the game. After all, they live in New Orleans and, like everybody else, they worship this guy.

In Super Bowl XLIV tonight however, Cooper Manning and his kids will have to root against their pal because he squares off against Uncle Peyton and the Indianapolis Colts. Even if blood is thicker than water, that doesn't mean it's going to be that much fun cheering for your brother over your best friend.

"I'm trying to suck whatever joy I can out of this thing," said Cooper, who is a partner in an energy trading firm in New Orleans. "But it's kinda like eating a hot, raw, 30-year-old oyster. I don't like it when Peyton plays Eli, and I don't like this. Drew and I are still gonna be friends after. But I know if it was me playing his brother, he'd pull for his brother. I guess I just wish Peyton were playing someone else."

The friendship between the Saints' best player and the Colts' quarterback's brother is only the start of the conflicting loyalties in this clash. This thing goes way back. Between 1971 and 1982, Archie Manning (father of Peyton, Eli and Cooper) was the quarterback on a Saints' team that was often so bad his own sons used to ask their mother if they were allowed to boo Daddy's team too. Despite all the criticism over all those losing seasons, Manning still chose to make his home in the city's fabled Garden District when his career ended. He's witnessed the place recover from Hurricane Katrina and knows the significance of the Saints' trip to their first ever Super Bowl.

"It's kind of a tough deal," said Archie Manning. "On one hand, we've lived there a long time so I've been through this experience, through a lot of lean days. I've watched the franchise grow in the last two years and you know they are doing things right. This has been a spectacular year and I have admired the work just like everyone else. On the other hand, I have a son playing in Indianapolis and we support him. That's where my allegiance has got to be. I can pull for the Colts and for Peyton but at the same time I can still be very proud of all the Saints and everything that has been accomplished there."

Archie Manning has to be that diplomatic. He knows the last time Peyton squired the Colts to the Super Bowl in 2006 many houses in New Orleans decked themselves out in the blue and white of Indianapolis. Those people were doing the right thing. They remembered Peyton as the teenage phenom at Isidore Newman High School who always seemed destined to make it to the NFL. They also knew him as the philanthropist who, within days of Katrina striking, had (with his brother Eli) chartered a plane full of supplies and flown down to Louisiana to oversee the delivery themselves. This is a relationship that transcends sport.

"We don't have royalty in America but the Mannings of New Orleans are kind of like the Kennedys of Massachusetts," said Bobby Hebert, one-time Saints' quarterback and now a radio personality in the city. "But I tell you what, come Sunday, there's going to be a revolution. There will be anarchy. There will be hatin' on Peyton."

There will be hatin' on Peyton because, well, he's won a Super Bowl already and is a shoo-in to the NFL Hall of Fame. For the Saints, this is a genuine opportunity to make history. These are fans who've been suffering since the days when Archie was helming a side known infamously as 'The Aints'. That was the historically bad era when supporters started to wear brown paper bags on their heads as symbols of their embarrassment at the side's ineptitude. In Miami tonight, they have a chance to leave all that behind.

Whether Brees can out-perform Manning at quarterback will be largely down to the defensive schemes dreamt up by Saints' coach Sean Payton in an attempt to curb the influence of the Colt now regarded by many as the greatest player of his generation. It's not like he doesn't know what he's facing either. This week, in one more illustration of how the two teams are intertwined, Payton told reporters the story of how a couple of years back he was invited over to Archie Manning's house for a barbecue, the highlight of which was his son Conner getting to catch passes in the garden from Peyton Manning.

"I never had any idea my kids would be playing pro football or even playing college football," said Archie Manning the other day. "I knew the Saints one day, in my lifetime would get to the Super Bowl. I've always felt like that. They're here, and they deserve to be here."

He stopped short of saying they deserve to win. Of course.

dhannigan@tribune.ie