When the Birmingham Stallions and New Orleans Breakers square off for the South Division title in a USFL semifinal game on Sunday night at Protective Stadium, they’ll play the first pro postseason football contest in Birmingham in 32 years.

On June 1, 1991, the Barcelona Dragons defeated the Birmingham Fire 10-3 at Legion Field in a World League of American Football playoff game.

While Barcelona crossed the Atlantic Ocean to play the Fire, New Orleans barely will cross the street to play the Stallions.

In the USFL’s hub system, four cities have two teams apiece, with the Breakers assigned to Birmingham with the Stallions. Sunday night’s game will be the seventh for each team at Protective Stadium this year.

The Stallions will play as the home team after posting an 8-2 record during the regular season.

“Obviously, they’re the best team in our league right now,” New Orleans coach John DeFilippo said. “The way you’re judged in professional sports is your record, and if you look at their record, they’re the best team in our league, so we have our hands full again, like you do every single week in this league.”

The Breakers and Stallions split their regular-season meetings, with New Orleans winning 45-31 on April 29 and Birmingham winning 24-20 on May 27.

At 7-3, the Breakers posted the USFL’s second-best record. No other team went better than 5-5.

Despite their dominance, Birmingham and New Orleans combined to provide six of the 28 All-USFL selections – Stallions quarterback Alex McGough, tight end Jace Sternberger, punter Colby Wadman and long snapper Ryan Langan and New Orleans running back Wes Hills and guard Paul Adams.

“Alex is having a great season,” DeFilippo said. “I know Alex well. I had him for a season in Jacksonville when I was the (offensive coordinator for the NFL’s Jaguars) there in 2019. I know what type of player he is. He’s a fantastic player. He can throw it; he can run it. He’s tough. He’s mentally tough. And if he gets that MVP, he surely deserves it. It’s our job, like we say every week, when that clock strikes zero, no matter how we do it, is to have one more point than the other team.”

The Stallions won the championship in the USFL’s return last season. Birmingham went 9-1 in the regular season in 2022, then beat the Breakers 31-17 in the playoffs for the South’s spot in the championship game, where the Stallions topped the Philadelphia Stars 33-30.

“I think it’s camaraderie,” McGough said of the Stallions’ extended success. “The offense plays for the defense, the defense plays for the offense and everybody joins in and gives a helping hand on special teams. There’s never a doubt, there’s never a panic. Even in the last game, we were down 14-3, and that game to some people, you could say, doesn’t matter. But it mattered to us because we didn’t want to back into the playoffs. We don’t want to go in there limping. …

“We play for each other because we know that’s what it takes to win.”

The USFL played its entire regular season in Birmingham in 2022. But last year’s postseason was staged in Canton, Ohio, where the North’s half of the playoff bracket will be played on Saturday.

The Michigan Panthers and Pittsburgh Maulers had 4-6 regular-season records, but they will square off at 7 p.m. CDT Saturday at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium for a spot in the 2023 championship contest. NBC will televise Saturday night’s game.

FOX will televise the Breakers-Stallions game at 6 p.m. Sunday.

The championship game is set for 7 p.m. July 1 in Canton.

“We got to go out there and really just execute our own stuff,” McGough said. “I think if you look at our game film, we stop ourselves more than the defense stops us. Obviously, they stopped us, but if you just really look, we seem to always hurt ourselves, and we got to stop doing that, and it starts with me. I think if we can do that, we should be in for a really good game.”

Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.