It is a testimony to Brady's innate talent and competitiveness that he should find himself in such a position.

Those who follow American football closely suggest that this stellar performer, whom many regard as the finest quarterback of all time, may have been assisted in his latest success story by a renewed drive to prove something, despite having had a career of which most of his peers could only dream.

His unhappy split last March from the New England Patriots, with whom he made his name and fortune, in all senses of the word, during a 20-year career which saw him guide the team to six Super Bowl wins, sent reverberations through not just American football but US sport.

When Brady made his last Super Bowl appearance for the Patriots in February 2019, when they beat Los Angeles Rams 13-3, he set the individual record for Super Bowl victories and helped his team equal the record of six wins established by Pittsburgh Steelers.

He also became, at 41, the oldest quarterback to win a Super Bowl. Now, two years on, he stands ready to make further history…

Win or lose at the Raymond James Stadium, Brady has already joined the ranks of elite performers across all sports who have defied the so-called age barrier, maintaining the highest standards beyond all normal expectations.

Brady still has a few years to go to reach the record established by George Blanda, the oldest player to compete in pro football, who retired in 1976 aged 48. At that point Blanda - a quarterback and place-kicker who played for 26 seasons - had scored more points than anyone in history.

While he was a relatively young 38 when he retired, John Elway filled a similar position to Brady in terms of star magnitude, becoming the second-most prolific passer in NFL history in the course of a 16-year career with Denver Broncos.

Statistically speaking, Elway's career got better the older he grew. After experiencing three Super Bowl defeats, he rounded off his career by guiding the Broncos to victory in the Super Bowls played in 1998 and 1999, with the latter his final game.

The model of the ageing star adapting their basic talents with guile, know-how and experience to carry on beating the youngsters is a widely celebrated one within all sports.

Brady's latest challenge, for instance, echoes the twist of fate that brought the man who captained England's footballers to the World Cup in 1966, Bobby Moore, back to Wembley at the end of his career in unfamiliar colours.

At 34, Moore's lifelong association with West Ham United had ended, and he had dropped a division to play for Fulham, helping them to the 1975 FA Cup final in his first full season with them. Fulham lost 2-0 - to West Ham. It was Moore's final Wembley appearance.

Teddy Sheringham was 42 when he rounded out a long and illustrious footballing career with a spell at Colchester United.

Over 24 seasons, Sheringham also played for Millwall, Manchester United - for whom he won a UEFA Champions League medal after he and current United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer scored in the final minutes to beat Bayern Munich 2-1 in the 1999 final - Tottenham Hotspur, Portsmouth and West Ham. He also earned 51 England caps.

English football has produced many "lasting players". Goalkeeper John Burridge, for instance, became the oldest player to appear in the Premier League when he turned out for Manchester City in 1994 aged 43.

One of the English game's, and indeed the world game's, most celebrated players was Stanley Matthews, who - uniquely - had become Sir Stanley Matthews by the time he retired from the top class game in 1965, aged 50.

Matthews played 54 times for England, earning his last cap aged 42. His story is the more remarkable as his position - outside right - was dependent on swift reflexes and speed, and thus less amenable to the ageing process. The focus upon him ahead of the 1953 FA Cup final was similar to that which is upon Brady right now.

Aged 38, Matthews had been on the losing side for Blackpool in the 1948 and 1951 FA Cup finals, and his third appearance in the footballing centrepiece that had been established in 1872 was generally regarded as his last chance to earn the medal that was - in those days - valued above all others.

It is a measure of the public perception of that game - in which Blackpool beat Bolton Wanderers 4-3 - that it came to be known as the Matthews final. Matthews was always embarrassed by that description, and himself referred to it as the Mortenson final in reference to his team-mate Stanley Mortensen, who scored a hat-trick in the game.

Matthews held the record as the oldest professional footballer for many years until that distinction was taken from him by Japan's Kazuyoshi Miura, who played in a worldwide top division with the J-League's Yokohama FC until he was 53.

Last year, Egyptian footballer Ezzeldin Bahader was recognised as the oldest professional player in the world according to Guinness World Records, after breaking Israeli Isaak Hayik's record by turning out at the age of 74 years and 125 days.

"Do not limit your ambitions," Bahader told reporters after the match.

"If there is something you couldn't achieve as a young man, in your youth, with a strong will, you can achieve it any time, regardless of age and the time that has passed."

Others in the game have conducted themselves in the same spirit. Two of Italy's most illustrious players for instance, goalkeeper Dino Zoff and forward Francesco Totti, played at the top level until the ages of 41 and 40 respectively.

The oldest ever Olympian is Oscar Swahn of Sweden. He was 72 years, 281 days old when he competed at the 1920 Olympics in shooting.

Austria's Arthur von Pongracz was also 72 when he competed in the dressage at the 1936 Berlin Games.

Dressage events have also featured other prodigious Olympic performers in more recent years, with Britain's Lorna Johnstone becoming the oldest female to compete in the Olympics when she appeared at the 1972 Munich Games aged 70. Japan's Hiroshi Hoketsu competed in the dressage at the London 2012 Games aged 71.

Also at the London 2012 Games, Canada's Ian Millar became the first athlete in any sport to compete in 10 Olympics. 

Millar, also an equestrian competitor, appeared at every Games from the 1972 Olympics to London 2012, apart from the 1980 Moscow Games which Canada boycotted.      

Golf is a sport that appears to be highly conducive to long-lasting performers. Tiger Woods is still operating at the top level of the game aged 45 after a career that has earned him 15 major titles.

But Woods is a comparative youngster compared to some of the other legends of the game.

In 2009, his US compatriot and multiple winner Tom Watson, just short of his 60th birthday, came tantalisingly close to earning another major title 26 years after his last one when he led after the second and third rounds of The Open Championship but then lost in a four-hole play-off.

That meant the oldest winner of a major golf title remained Julius Boros, who won the 1968 PGA Championship aged 48.

That bettered a record set more than a century earlier, when Tom Morris Sr - very senior, indeed - won the 1867 Open Championship aged 46.

Third on the list was another legend of the game, Jack Nicklaus, who was also 46 when he won his last of 18 majors - the 1986 Masters. Nicklaus played on at the top level until he was 65.

Arnold Palmer, another US giant of the game who is fifth on the all-time major winners list, retired from tournament golf aged 77 on October 13, 2006, when he withdrew from the Champions Tour's Small Business Classic after four holes due to dissatisfaction with his own play. You know when it's your time…

Babe Didrickson Zaharias, the gold medallist at the 1932 Los Angeles Games in the 80 metres hurdles and javelin, went on to win 10 major titles in women's golf, collecting the last of them in 1954 just two years before she died aged 45.

In 2008, at the age of 41, Dara Torres became the first woman in history to swim in the Olympics past the age of 40 after a career that had spanned nearly three decades. Torres did more than that, taking home three silver medals and setting a US record in the 50 metres freestyle.

The tennis world is currently awaiting Roger Federer's return to the circuit at the age of 38. The 20-time Grand Slam champion had originally planned to make his return at the Australian Open which starts tomorrow, but the strict measures imposed by the local Government and a lingering knee injury have frustrated that ambition.

Federer, however, still has hopes to compete at Wimbledon and the rescheduled Tokyo Olympics this year.

"My biggest wish is to finish my career on my terms," he recently told Switzerland's SRF. "As I've said before, it doesn't have to be a fairytale ending, it doesn't have to be a Wimbledon victory, and then I'll walk away."

Federer carries with him the levels of public esteem once accorded to Australia's Ken Rosewall, who played at the top level until the age of 47.

In 1974 Rosewall, a few months short of his 40th birthday, earned what looked like his last chance of completing a set of Grand Slam titles. Having won the Australian Open four times, and the French and US Opens twice, he had a Wimbledon record of three final appearances without getting his hands on the winning trophy.

Sadly for him the brash 21-year-old figure of Jimmy Connors proved entirely unsentimental on the day as he won 6-1, 6-1, 6-4.

In women's tennis, at 37, Serena Williams is still seeking the Grand Slam individual title that would allow her to draw level with Australia's Margaret Court on 24.

Martina Navratilova retired from the game aged 49 in 2006 after winning 18 Grand Slam singles titles.

Michael Jordan maintained his incomparable career in basketball at the highest level until, six-times a National Basketball Association (NBA) winner with Chicago Bulls, he retired aged 40 in 2003.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar played for 20 seasons in the NBA for the Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Lakers - and was voted six times as the NBA's most valuable player - before winding up his career in 1989 aged 42.

Among baseball's long-stayers were pitcher Barry Bonds, who retired aged 43, Nolan Ryan, who maintained a top-level career until he was 46, and  Leroy "Satchel" Paige who retired at 48.

Ty Cobb also retired at that age, while Babe Ruth played for 21 years before retiring in 1935, aged 40.

In ice hockey, Canada's National Hockey League stalwart Gordie Howe played at the top level until he was 52.

Boxing has also had many fighters who have extended their careers beyond expectations - and in some cases beyond wise counsel.

Among those who did so with sustained success was US middleweight and light heavyweight Bernard Hopkins, who concluded his career in 2016 aged 51.

Two-time world heavyweight champion George Foreman retired in 1977, but returned in 1994, aged 45, and won the unified World Boxing Association and International Boxing Federation world titles by knocking out 26-year-old Michael Moorer.

The incomparable Mohammad Ali, who regained his world title at Foreman's expense in 1974, fought on until 1981, when he was just a couple of months short of his 40th birthday.

In November last year former world heavyweight champion Mike Tyson returned to the ring aged 54 after a 15-year absence and fought out a draw with Roy Jones Jr in an eight-round exhibition match.

One of the most celebrated, and venerable, track and field athletes was Ethiopia's Miruts Yifter. Unable to participate in the 1976 Summer Olympics because his nation boycotted the event, he turned up at Moscow four years later and won both the 10,000 and 5,000m titles, securing the latter with an electric sprint over the final 300m that earned him the nickname of "Yifter the Shifter".

His emergence in Moscow was characterised by frequent enquiries about his birthday, which was given in some sources as January 1, 1938 and in others as May 15, 1944, meaning he could have been anywhere from 33 to 42-years-old.

Yifter refused to give a definitive answer, telling reporters: "Men may steal my chickens, men may steal my sheep. 

"But no man can steal my age."