Confinement in the Big Bang and Deconfinement in the Little Bangs at CERN-SPS

The evolution of strongly interacting matter during the cosmological confinement transition is reviewed. Despite of many proposed relics no specific signal from the rearrangement of quarks and gluons into hadrons has been identified by observations. In contrast to this, several observables in heavy-ion collisions at CERN-SPS energies point to the creation of a matter state near or slightly above deconfinement. We focus here on the analysis of dileptons and direct photons. Similarities and differences of the Big Bang and the Little Bang confinement dynamics are elaborated.