BEFORE Tom Brady left Boston for London, where today the New England Patriots will show fans at Wembley why they are the greatest American football team, the 32-year-old quarterback held a dinner party at his 19th-century mansion and gave thanks for recovering from a knee injury that had threatened to end his spectacular career.

He toasted his wife, the Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen, who is expecting their first child in December. And then Brady asked for one more thing — some “fun” in London, maybe a night out with David Beckham. “Or am I asking for too much?” he joked.

The question seems absurd. Brady is, according to fans and foes alike, the most impossibly gifted, as well as downright lucky, football star in America. He has an annual salary of $7.5m, and earns the same again in endorsements, and when he is finished in Boston, Hollywood beckons.

There have been darker days. In 2006 he broke up with his pregnant girlfriend, actress Bridget Moynahan, although he returned to Los Angeles for the birth of their son. He is facing a $1m writ after shots were allegedly fired at photographers taking pictures of Brady and Bundchen in Costa Rica.

Raised in northern California under the spell of San Francisco 49ers quarterback Joe Montana, Brady was the high school quarterback destined to have it all — if he had not, in the sweat of the night before the big game, suffered from crippling panic attacks.

Playing college football at Michigan State in the late 1990s he struggled to get game time so he found a psychologist who helped him stop worrying and love the game. A year later, in 2000, Brady joined the Patriots.

In a sport built around heroic quarterbacks, Brady is a superhero. He has played in four Superbowls, helping to win three of them, and holds the NFL record for the most touchdown passes in a single season. Earlier this month he returned from the injury that kept him out last season to break another record, throwing five touchdowns in a quarter during a 59-0 drubbing of the Tennessee Titans.

Under owner Robert Kraft, a Patriots fan since his impoverished childhood, the team has evolved from the second rank into the NFL powerhouse. Only Pittsburgh Steelers, and maybe New York Giants on a good day, can match them in sheer force.

Sadly, this is not the quality of match-up 85,000 fans will see at Wembley today; instead, Brady and company will face Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

The Buccaneers, who have lost six games so far this season, are a laughing stock back home. Last week the St Petersburg Times apologised on behalf of all Floridans. “Britain gave us The Beatles, James Bond and Shakespeare. And, in return, we are giving them the Bucs? What did the English ever do to deserve this?” joked an editorial. “That said, the English have one thing going for them. It’s called extradition. If they don’t like what they see, they can always send the Bucs back. And in compensation they can keep Tom Brady to set up their NFL franchise.”

We should be so lucky.

ON TV TODAY
New England v Tampa Bay
4.30pm Sky Sports 2