Tom Brady and the others: the champions who reconsider and return to play

Those who rethink it. Those who stop, indeed do not. Waving champions. They stop, they put an end to their career. Then they leave, they found the extension. They don’t know how to be without adrenaline, ambition burns inside them. They are hungry for the field, for sporting battle, for competition. If they felt old and running out, it was only for a moment. Time to get bored lying on the sofa.

And so: Tom Brady makes U-turn. After announcing his retirement and after just 41 days of imagining a different future, the 44-year-old American football champion will return to play. He thought about it, came to this conclusion: “In the last two months I have realized that my seat is still on the pitch and not in the stands. That time will come, but not now. I’m going back to Tampa Bay for my 23rd season in the NFL. ” In the quarterback’s rethinking, it seems that the push of his wife, the Brazilian top model, was decisive Gisele Bundchen, moved to 2009 with which Tom had two children: Benjamin Rein (12) and Vivian Lake (9). Maybe she got tired of seeing him running around the house like a beaten dog, maybe she suggested that he could still be on the pitch, and how if he could.

The history of sport is full of champions “Stop & go”. Sometimes they come back, sure. The most famous example concerns Michael Jordan. It was 1993, he was 30 years old, three NBA titles with the Chicago Bulls shone on the bulletin board. He got tired, withdrew. Then he came back. He won three more NBA titles. The Last Dance, precisely. Except she wasn’t the last. Another withdrawal, another return. This time two seasons with the Washington Wizards. To regulate the choices, often are economic issues, sometimes sentimental ones. A subtle nostalgia, things like that. Or the desire to feel Forever Young.

As it happened to Cassius Clay /Muhammad Ali who returned and lost or to George Foreman, capable of winning the world title at the age of 45. More or less the same path as Martina Navratilova, who won at 50, in mixed doubles, his last Grand Slam. Worse went to Bjorn Borg: overwhelmed by debts, he attempted to return without however resolving the problem.

Bella the story of Katarina Witt, the East German skater gold medal in Sarajevo 1984 and Calgary 1988. On the occasion of the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer she decided, despite having already retired, to return to compete. It was her homage to the reunification of Germany, under whose banner she returned to the track without disfiguring.

It’s not always easy to question yourself. In the 90’s Franco Baresi, Milan legend, he announced that he had finished with the national team, but then thought better of it when, to call him back, it was his friend CT, Arrigo Sacchi. Antonio Cassano in 2016 badly broke his relationship with Sampdoria, returned home, went on vacation, announced “The end”, only to retrace his steps, do a two-week test in Verona, get tired, try again to feel like a footballer with Entella and then finish it there, exhausted from too many trips / returns.

Source: Vanity Fair

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