Football's strangest shirt numbers
Strange Shirt Numbers in Football History
There are some truly bizarre stories surrounding football players and their shirt numbers. These are the stories behind some of footballs most bizarre shirt numbers.
We all know of CR7 and R9 and a few others have claimed the number 10 as their own, truly there have been some iconic shirt numbers over the years Most goalkeepers want the Number 1 etc.
There have been however, some truly strange and bizarre shirt numbers in the history of Football.
The School of Football looks into the stories behind some of the more off the wall shirt number choices.
1+8 - Iván Zamorano
After the Chilean international was forced to give up his number 9 shirt to Ronaldo as part of the Brazilian’s sponsorship deal with Nike, Zamorano decided to take the number 18 but demanded to have a plus sign inserted.
80 - Ronaldinho at AC Milan
When he joined the club Ronaldinho couldn’t have his favoured number 10 shirt because it was in the possession of Dutch legend, Seedorf. Instead, he decided to wear the 80 shirt as a homage to the year he was born.
Ronaldinho in the Number 80
1 - Ossie Ardilles at the 1982 WC
The legendary WC winning midfielder wore the number 1 shirt because the Argentinian numbers were allocated by alphabetical order for the tournament. However, Diego Maradona found a way to keep his number 10.
01 - Derek Riordan at Hibernian
Riordan started his career with Hibs where he wore the number 10 shirt but after moving to Celtic for 2 seasons, Riordan returned to Easter Road to find Colin Nish was wearing his number 10, so he went for the closest thing possible.
9 - Jorge Campos
The legendary Mexican goalkeeper wore the number 9 shirt because he began his career as a striker, scoring 28 goals for UNAM and he kept it ever since.
Legendary keeper, Jorge Campos
66 - Alain Sutter at Dallas Burn
The Swiss international midfielder let American culture go to his head when he picked 66 in reference to the highway, Route 66.
69 - Bixente Lizarazu at Bayern Munich
The 1998 French World Cup winner claimed he wore the number because he was born in 1969, 169 cm tall and weighed 69kg
0 - Hicham Zerouali at Aberdeen
The Moroccan striker wore the number 0 after he was given permission by the SFA to honour his nickname on the back of his shirt, zero.
100 - Adolfo Bautista at Chivas de Guadalajara
The Mexican striker and football fashionista was the first man in the history of the game to wear three digits on the back of his shirt.
Bautista and his Number 100 shirt
111 - Luizão at Flamengo
In 2006 the Brazilian international wore the number 111 for the season to celebrate Flamgeno’s 111th anniversary as a football club.
