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Tom Brady, the best footballer of all time, wrote this Sunday another chapter of his career and sport (7).
At age 43, the quarterback led the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to the second Super Bowl title (the NFL final) in Florida franchise history (the first was in 2003, referring to the 2002 season), entitled to a devastating victory over the last champions, the Kansas City Chiefs, 31-9.
Brady also won America’s biggest sports game in 2002, 2004, 2005, 2015, 2017 and 2019, always with the New England Patriots.
Now, it has more Super Bowl accomplishments (from 1966) than any team in the league. When he decided to move house for the first time in his career and defend a team with little tradition, the setting was unknown. But he, with a lot of help from the defense of the franchise this Sunday, made it work.
In an atypical season, obviously marked by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Buccaneers had the privilege of being the first team in history to play the Super Bowl in the stadium itself: the venue is defined years in advance.
The Raymond James Stadium hosted an audience this Sunday: 7,500 invited health workers, who have already received the coronavirus vaccine, 14,500 people who were able to buy tickets and 2,700 more in cabins.
In the long-awaited duel between Brady and Patrick Mahomes, the 25-year-old quarterback of the Chiefs who is seen as the main talent to write the following chapters of football, only the veteran shone, on a day in which everything it went well. team and everything went wrong for the rival.
The first half was superior for the Buccaneers, who scored two touchdowns with the historic combination of Tom Brady’s pass to Rob Gronkowski’s reception. They both won three NFL titles with the Patriots and reunited in Florida.
Near the end of the first half, Antonio Brown received a pass from the quarterback to extend the lead.
Mahomes, on the other hand, wasn’t as productive as expected (and when he did, he saw his receivers fail), and the Chiefs’ attack scored with just two accurate shots until halftime. Meanwhile, the defense of the last champions committed a series of fouls that compromised attempts to stop the rival attack. Partial score from 21 to 6.
As singer The Weeknd performed at halftime, the teams went to the locker rooms. But there were no major changes when they returned from there.
The home team scored another touchdown, on a run from Leonard Fournette, and then could only handle the showdown. Mahomes stayed to applaud Brady (voted best of the final for the fifth time), as he dealt with pain on the field, and to take the lesson to the rest of the decisions that should come to be contested in his career.
Super Bowl 55 will also be marked by being the first to feature a woman on the umpire team. Sarah Thomas, 47, was responsible for the unprecedented feat.
