Squad Number (association Football) - in International Football

In International Football

The move to a fixed number being assigned to each player in a squad was initiated for the 1954 World Cup where each man in a country's 22-man squad wore a specific number for the duration of the tournament. As a result, the numbers 12 to 22 were assigned to different squad players, with no resemblance to their on-field positions. This meant that a team could start a match not necessarily fielding players wearing numbers one to eleven. Although the numbers one to eleven tended to be given to those players deemed to be the "first choice line-up", this was not always the case for a variety of reasons - a famous example was Johan Cruyff, who insisted on wearing the number 14 shirt for the Netherlands. Other examples of this include Nicolas Anelka and Thierry Henry, who wore 39 and 12, respectively, for France and also Xabi Alonso and Sergio Ramos, who wear 14 and 15, respectively, for Spain.

In the 1958 World Cup, the Brazilian Football Confederation forgot to send the player numbers list to the event organisation. However, the Uruguayan official Lorenzo Villizzio assigned random numbers to the players. The goalkeeper Gilmar received the number 3, and Garrincha and Zagallo wore opposite winger numbers, 11 and 7, while Pelé was randomly given the number 10, for which he would become famous.

Argentina defied convention by numbering their squads for the 1974, 1978, and 1982 World Cups alphabetically, resulting in outfield players (not goalkeepers) wearing the number 1 shirt (although Diego Maradona was given an out-of-sequence number 10 in 1982).) England used a similar alphabetical scheme for the 1982 World Cup, but retained the traditional numbers for the goalkeepers (1) and the team captain (7), Kevin Keegan. In a practice that ended after the 1998 World Cup, Italy gave low squad numbers to defenders, medium to midfielders, and high ones to forwards, while numbers 1, 12 and 22 were assigned to goalkeepers. More recently, FIFA tournament regulations have stated that the number 1 jersey must be issued to a goalkeeper.

Before the 2002 World Cup, the Argentine Football Federation (AFA) attempted to retire the number 10 in honor of Maradona by submitting a squad list of 23 players for the tournament, listed 1 through 24, with the number 10 omitted. FIFA rejected Argentina's plan, and the governing body's president, Sepp Blatter suggested the number 10 shirt be instead given to the team's third-choice goalkeeper, Roberto Bonano. AFA ultimately submitted a revised list with Ariel Ortega, originally listed as number 23, as the number 10.