Michael Jordan
played 40% of the
NBA Finals
that were held in the 15 seasons he played in the league: six.
Cristiano Ronaldo
fought in six Champions League finals on the 17 occasions he has participated in the competition: 35%.
Miguel Induráin
triumphed in 41% of Tours de France that ran: 5 out of 12.
Michael Schumacher
won 36% of the Formula 1 World Championships in which he got into a car: 7 out of 19. And
Rafa Nadal
has reached 28 finals in the 60 Grand Slam he has stepped on: an extraordinary 46%.
All of them would be in the top positions of a hypothetical list of the best athletes in history.
And all, within their greatness and the incredible success they have achieved in their careers, do not exceed the numerical milestone of
Tom Brady
, who at dawn from Sunday to Monday (00:30, Come on, Movistar) will play his
tenth Superbowl
in 21 seasons.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback, who signed for the Florida team this summer, will have been present in 48% of the NFL title games that have taken place since his arrival in the league.
And since the merger of American football in 1970, no team has won more championships than it - six.
Only the Pittsburgh Steelers match him
.
That simple
Each end for the title of any discipline and each attempt by an athlete to enter the history books are accompanied by hyperbole.
But not this time.
This Superbowl is generational, historical
, definitive and all the adjectives you want to add.
He faces the best player of all time, who at 43 years old seeks to have more titles than any American football organization, against the Kansas City Chiefs of
Patrick Mahomes
, the
25-year-old
boy
who has smashed all precocious records, who He has already raised an
MVP of the season
and a
Superbowl
, who has signed the largest contract in the history of the league (more than
500 million for ten years
) and is called to mark an era in the NFL and in world sport.
The young star of the league has signed agreements with important brands such as
adidas or Electronic Arts
and has turned to
Kobe Bryant and LeBron James
to find out how to manage their assets outside of sport: "I have studied their cases and that of Jordan. I want to draw a plan and take those steps beyond the lawn. "
2019 AND THE NFL TORCH
18 years, 45 days and two worlds separate Brady and Mahomes
.
The biggest difference between two finalist quarterbacks in Superbowl history.
One was born in 1977, another in 1995. One is the perfect example of competitive disease taken to the extreme, of caring for the body above all else, of exclusive dedication (his family has left him twelve days 'free' to prepare for the Superbowl) and perseverance and improvement, after being chosen in the
199th place
in the
2000 draft
.
"Next
year I won't watch the game with a jacket on
," Brady said during last year's final.
No sooner said than done.
Mahomes is the rebellion of the new generation, talent, differential style, improvisation ... And victory.
Because if Mahomes knows something, like Brady, it is to win.
This year he
plays the third Playoffs of his life and has only lost once
.
It was in his debut campaign, in the 2019 Conference final, in the run-up to the Superbowl.
And who beat him?
Yes, Tom Brady, in his penultimate season with the New England Patriots before trading to the Buccaneers.
That night, Brady refused to pass the NFL torch to Mahomes and won, but he knew what he had faced.
At the end of the game, he skipped the theoretical protocols and asked permission to enter the Chiefs locker room.
He wanted to say hello to the young rookie who had forced him to go to extra time to win
.
"He told me that he was doing things well and that he was going to have more opportunities to play those kinds of matches," Mahomes later acknowledged.
Brady already warned about the future greatness of his rival: "
None of this is big enough for
him
."
Brady's Withdrawal: "When it's time, I'll know"
Now Mahomes has a chance to
win two Superbowls in a row in his first three years in the league
.
Something that only one quarterback has achieved in NFL history:
Tom Brady
.
"The objective is to win as many titles as possible and I want to play until they let me," Mahomes declared this week, assuming the eternal comparison with a Brady who does not observe the horizon of retirement: "
When the time is right, I will know.
" explains the veteran quarterback.
"But I don't know when it will be. When I put everything on the field and feel like I can't do more, that I can't commit to the team as they need to, that's when I'll step aside."
Tom Horse, one of his assistants, sums it up perfectly: "There is no reason not to do with 45 what you did with 25 ...
If you are willing to pay the price. And Tom is willing
."
In another appointment with history, the Brady Buccaneers will have the opportunity to be the first team to win the Superbowl in their own stadium.
In the stands, just over
20,000 people
despite the 600 infections that the Tampa area added yesterday, half a thousand agents to coordinate the restrictions due to Covid-19 and a bubble closed under pressure to avoid positives.
The NFL has managed to live up to tradition and celebrate the game on the first Sunday in February, despite
outbreaks during the season
and the refusal of several players to take to the pitch this year.
Yes, Brady and Mahomes will.
Both to write a new page in the history of the NFL.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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