Taylor Swift, Donald Trump and Lionel Messi will all gather in one place on Sunday, but no one has come to see them - instead all eyes will be locked on a mesmerising escapologist on the brink of history, writes OLIVER HOLT

President Trump took a break from airing his plans to turn the Gaza Strip into Palm Beach this week to talk about Super Bowl LIX. Many of his pronouncements may cause widespread consternation but when he praised Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, he was on safe ground. Trump will become the first sitting US president to attend a Super Bowl when he takes his seat in the Superdome in New Orleans on Sunday for the climax of the NFL season between the Chiefs, who are bidding to become the first team ever to win American Football’s showpiece event three times in a row, and the Philadelphia Eagles.

And when he was asked which team would win, President Trump restricted his answer to a reference to Mahomes. 'I don't want to say,’ Trump responded, ‘but there's a certain quarterback that seems to be a pretty good winner.'. No one could argue with that. Mahomes may not have quite the same crossover appeal of Travis Kelce, the Chiefs’ veteran tight end and the boyfriend of Taylor Swift, but he is the best player in the NFL and, already, at the age of 29, one of the most decorated quarterbacks in the history of the sport.

Patrick Mahomes is going for an unprecdented three-peat with the Kansas City Chiefs. Mahomes and the Chiefs will line up against the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday night. Watching Mahomes brings a moment of realisation about proximity to genius. Everyone who loves the NFL has their own favourite quarterback. Mine was Brett Favre, who had a cannon of an arm and a southern swagger that appears to have been his undoing in life after sport.

Others preferred the elegance of Dan Marino. Even more would profess an allegiance to Tom Brady, the greatest of them all. Mahomes is very much in that company. There are a few, beautifully rare, moments in a life watching sport when you understand, incontrovertibly, that you are in the presence of greatness. The moment of realisation about proximity to genius, Marlon Brando’s character says in Apocalypse Now, is like being ‘shot with a diamond’.

That realisation was there at the Olympic Games last summer when I squeezed into the press box at the Stade de France and saw Antoine Dupont seize the Rugby Sevens final when he came on at half-time and won gold for the hosts. I saw it from high in the stands at the Lusail Stadium in Qatar in the winter of 2022 when Lionel Messi ran a ring around Josko Gvardiol in Argentina’s semi-final win over Croatia and set up a tap-in for Julian Alvarez.

And I saw it again this time last year, from the back row of the section allocated to foreign press at the Allegiant Stadium, a few hundred yards from the Las Vegas Strip, when Mahomes led the Chiefs to their second straight Super Bowl victory. There was a certainty about Mahomes doing what he did that bright afternoon in the crisp desert air. On the sport’s biggest stage, when everything was on the line, when his team was behind, you simply knew that one of the greatest players in the history of the NFL was going to come through in the clutch.

Mahomes is a mesmerising escapologist, able to wriggle out of any situation. His partnership with Travis Kelce has underpinned a dynasty in Kansas City. Only Tom Brady (right) will have won more Super Bowls than Mahomes if he claims victory. Everyone knew that, for all the excellence of the Chiefs’ defence, the difference between the two teams in the end was going to come down to the genius of Mahomes.

When it came to the crunch, the San Francisco 49ers' second-year quarterback, Brock Purdy, could not get the job done. Mahomes? It was never in doubt. It was a strange feeling. Sport is often defined by its unpredictability but even though Mahomes still had to move his team most of the length of the field to win the game in Sin City, there was no doubt in the mind that that at the end of it, he was going to hit the jackpot.

It was like watching the spin of a roulette wheel, knowing that the ball was going to come to rest on red. Mahomes rallied the Chiefs in regulation, dragging them back from a six-point fourth quarter deficit to force the game into overtime. And when the 49ers’ first drive in overtime only yielded a field goal, the Chiefs’ safety Justin Reid told reporters that he said to himself: ‘It’s over.’.

‘We’re going to get the ball back to 15,’ Reid thought, referencing the number that Mahomes wears on his back. And, sure enough, No 15 stepped up, orchestrating a superb, gutsy, 75-yard drive that showcased his rushing ability as well as his passing style. Time and again, Mahomes came through when the pressure was at its highest and heaviest, rushing on fourth down early in the drive when everything was on the line. And making it.