Tom Brady has been criticised by football fans for stating the obvious with a not-so-hot take on the type of superstar that the US national team need to breed.
The seven-time Super Bowl champion entered the footballing world back in 2023 when he purchased a stake in Birmingham City, becoming chairman of the club’s new advisory board.
In his first season at the club, the Blues were relegated to League One, but last season they bounced straight back into the Championship, romping to third-tier glory by 19 points over Wrexham.
Brady’s remarkable achievements during a 22-year career in the NFL, which was littered with gold, certainly warrant him to voice his respected opinion in American football.
However, his voice is now becoming much more prominent in the game they call soccer across the pond, with a recent opinion relayed on the Men In Blazers podcast catching a lot of traction on social media, but not for the right reasons.
The NFL legend stated that the US needs ‘a young phenom like a Lamine Yamal’, which is not an opinion many would disagree with, as he is a Ballon d’Or contender at just 18 years old.
Brady told the Men in Blazers Podcast: ‘I think the reality for most athletes in America is these other sports just become very dominant because of culturally what’s on television all the time.
‘And what’s being talked about in the schoolyard often ends up being talked about American football, basketball, baseball, hockey.
‘And it’s an amazing sport. It’s a global sport. It’s the biggest sport in the world. We all love it. And the reality is, you think about boxing, when there’s an American heavyweight, everyone in America is all in on it.
‘And we need the youth in America in soccer. We need a young phenom like a Lamine Yamal, a young Lionel Messi, to take over. And I believe that there will be the most amazing kind of cultural revolution for soccer here in America.
‘We love rooting for winners. We love rooting for the best of the best. The World Cup is coming to America in 2026. You can’t imagine the fanfare when that happens. Every stadium will be sold out. The American audience loves it.’
This is not exactly what many would call a unique perspective, given Messi is regarded as the best player of this generation, while Barcelona’s Yamal has drawn comparisons to the great Argentinian already at such a young age.
Fans were quick to poke fun at Brady for the comment on social media, with one user sarcastically claiming, ‘my boy Tom knows ball’.
Not all supporters took the humourous route in their responses, though, with many being much more direct.
One wrote: ‘Every national team needs a young Lionel Messi.’ Meanwhile, another said similarly, ‘Every team in the world needs a player like Yamal, what’s new?’
It was also clocked that Brady got Yamal’s name wrong, instead getting the starting letters of both his first name and surname the wrong way around, accidentally calling him ‘Yamine Lamal’.
This is not the first time that Brady has hit the footballing headlines recently after his criticism of former Birmingham head coach Wayne Rooney came to light in a five-part Amazon Prime series ‘Built in Birmingham: Brady and the Blues’.
In it, Brady admits to being worried about the dedication of the Manchester United legend during his disastrous spell at St Andrews. Rooney was sacked in January last year, lasting just 15 matches in the Blues’ dugout.
The fly-on-the-wall documentary shows Brady visiting the Birmingham training ground to observe Rooney’s team meeting and training session. While driving away, he tells his business manager Ben Rawitz: ‘I’m a little worried about our head coach’s work ethic.’
