He is one of the greatest stars in the history of the sport, an American football legend, an absolute star across the Atlantic.
However, in France, hardly anyone knows Tom Brady, Thomas Edward Patrick Brady Jr. for civil status.
On the night of Sunday to Monday, he qualified for a 10th Super Bowl, the annual final of the American football championship.
Covid or not, the event will take place on Sunday February 7 and will once again be the most watched of the year in the United States.
“You lost that lovin 'feelin', bring back that lovin 'feelin'” pic.twitter.com/lo4XIhrId0
- Tom Brady (@TomBrady) January 19, 2021
For this match, 100 million Americans collapse in front of the TV.
Every player dreams of participating once.
At 43, Tom Brady needs the fingers of both hands to count his number of finals.
Arrived in the NFL (National Football League) in 2000 by the (very) small door (nobody believed in him), he plays this match of all the superlatives one year out of two.
Already six times winner of the Super Bowl
On his mantelpiece, in his $ 20 million (€ 16 million) mansion that his estimated fortune of $ 180 million (€ 148 million) allows him to maintain, Brady already has six replicas of the Vince- Lombardi, who rewards the champion.
“I was never a person who cared about the legacy he would leave,” he says.
I really don't care.
And yet: his longevity and his unique track record in one of the most dangerous sports on the planet are exceptional.
Brady is a quarterback, the equivalent of number 10 in European football.
"Brady is the conductor and the composer of the offensive game of his team, that's why he is exceptional," said Richard Tardits, one of the few French people to have played in the NFL.
See you in Tampa.
#SBLV @Chiefs |
@Buccaneers pic.twitter.com/H9RLOhKqkt
- NFL (@NFL) January 25, 2021
Tom Brady added an extra line to his legend on Sunday.
He qualified with a second-class team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who wanted him last spring.
Because, for America, Tom Terrific is what Michael Jordan was for Chicago: the player of a single team, that of the New England Patriots, the franchise based in Boston.
The one with which he won everything and to which he seemed bound for life.
Too old to stay Patriot
With one detail: his age.
A year ago, the day after a lost Super Bowl, the Patriots deemed him too old, worn out, tired.
"The moment had come for me to live a new experience, quite simply", considers, philosopher, Brady.
Direction then the sun of Florida and a last lap for the Californian who qualifies a team absent from the playoffs for twelve years for a historic Super Bowl against the title holders, Kansas City.
“It's hard to imagine,” says the legend.
I am so proud of this whole team.
I am lucky to be a part of it.
On February 7, for a game to be played in Tampa Bay, Brady could be the first quarterback in history to win two Super Bowls with two different teams.
. @ TomBrady is going to his 10th Super Bowl!
#GoBucs #NFLPlayoffs pic.twitter.com/UesDFHP01O
- NFL (@NFL) January 24, 2021
It's Boston that bites its fingers today, so the forty-something seems invulnerable.
He probably owes it to a diet called TB12 that he developed.
“80% of what he eats is vegetables,” says personal chef Allen Campbell.
The rest is 20% lean meats, organic beef, duck, chicken or wild salmon.
Tom Brady never swallows tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms or eggplants, which are not anti-inflammatory.
No coffee, white sugar, sodas or dairy products either at the champion's table who starts each day with a glass of water infused with electrolytes, a conductive substance that contains mobile ions.
Trump wanted him for his son-in-law
The beautiful kid with green eyes, married to one of the most beautiful women in the world, the Brazilian model Gisele Bündchen, still has his dark side.
Brady was involved in 2015 in Deflategate, a funny story of cheating and deflated balloons supposed to benefit him.
He got away with a few suspension games.
On February 7, the Super Bowl will be a generational opposition between two star quarterbacks: Patrick Mahomes for Kansas City Chiefs and Tom Brady for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
AFP / Jamie Squire and Stacy Revere
Half of America can also blame him for supporting one of his golf partners, a certain Donald Trump, whom he supported in 2016 before distancing himself.
Trump dreamed of Brady marrying his daughter Ivanka.
“But there was a concern, assured the quarterback.
We never saw each other.
As for Donald Trump, we cannot deny a friendship.
But politics and friendship are two very different things.
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