French soccer royalty, Paris Saint-Germain, made history in the UEFA Champions League, recording the largest margin of victory in the competition’s final. PSG beat Inter Milan 5-0 at Munich’s Allianz Arena on Saturday. NFL legend Tom Brady witnessed the landslide domination of the Italian giants from the stands in Munich.
What struck the seven-time Super Bowl champion wasn’t just the result or how easily coach Luis Enrique’s team outsmarted their Italian rivals. It was the way this youthful PSG squad — now without the big names it boasted just a few years ago — carried itself on Europe’s biggest stage.
Brady, reflecting on the matchup in the latest edition of 199, his weekly newsletter, wrote that while watching PSG dominate, he began thinking deeply about one thing: confidence. He wondered where it came from — and why this PSG team had it in spades.
PSG reached the top despite losing two of the greatest goal scorers of all time in Lionel Messi, Neymar Jr., and soccer’s present superstar, Kylian Mbappé, in recent years.
“It’s obviously been a wild ride for Paris Saint-Germain over the last two years,” Brady wrote. “They lost three of their star players — Messi, Neymar, and Mbappe… Yet, it’s hard to think about their departure as a ‘loss’, especially now, in retrospect.”
But how did this group of players achieve this extraordinary feat such early in their careers? For Brady, the answer lies in what he calls “conscious competence”.
“You know you’re good, and you know why you’re good,” Brady said. “There’s one sure-fire way to create confidence: Displaying competence when it counts.”
The New England Patriots legend further made the case that PSG’s young team didn’t just accidentally stumble into success. Instead, they learned from the failures of previous star-studded lineups. Those Messi-Neymar-Mbappe PSG teams failed to gel when it mattered, crashing out early in recent Champions League campaigns.
Now, even with those global superstars gone, this PSG side never looked like one that lacked talent. Rather than sticking to their recent strategy of shelling out money for the big names, they bet big on some of the most promising youngsters in the sport.
From the 20-year-old Désiré Doué to Portuguese starlet João Neves, coach Enrique focused on filling his squad with players full of confidence and hunger to create a complete team. This was something the Patriots legend noted as well.
“The average age of the starting 11 was under 25 years old,” Brady wrote.
“For most squads… it would almost be a guarantee that they’d take a step backward… Not this team… They are everything you’d want in a champion. They’re quick, aggressive, accurate, unselfish, and most importantly, they play with ridiculous confidence,” he elaborated.
That confidence, Brady argued, wasn’t fragile or fake — it was grounded in preparation, repetition, and a clear understanding of their strengths and weaknesses.
“Confidence is not static or permanent. It’s not a tattoo,” he explained. “You have to build it up and reinforce it… It comes through practice, rehearsal… learning from your failures.”
Ultimately, the GOAT’s biggest compliment wasn’t just that PSG played like winners, it was that they operated like the Patriots teams he once led to greatness. “The legacy of my Patriots teams is defined by the confidence we built atop our commitment to conscious competence,” he wrote.
And what happens if PSG continues to build on this kind of culture? In this case, Brady believes that the young PSG squad will be a “force to reckon with for seasons to come.”
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