99, 44, 100% pure

Was watching Roma vs. Man United on Tuesday night. Couldn’t help notice the Giallorossi’s Marco Cassetti wearing the squad number 77. Why 77? Is he just a kooky character? No, it’s got to be more that that. Could it be his lucky bingo number? Perhaps he once asked an ice cream man for a ‘99’ but ended up a ¾ length Flake instead of a whole one. On second thoughts, that’d be a ‘66’, wouldn’t it? A quick look on Wikipedia shows that the Italian was born in 1977. So maybe that’s it. Nothing new, but if it’s a trend, teams are going to run out of preferred numbers fast.

Footballers aren’t adverse to wearing seemingly daft numbers. In the World Cup of ‘82, Ossie Ardiles wore the #1 shirt…as a midfielder. More to do with the fact that Argentina numbered their players in alphabetical order. (Incidentally, Diego Maradona just happened to rest at #10 in the list.) There have been a fair few incumbents of #99 (back on ice cream again), usually because the number 9 shirt is already taken, Ronaldo at AC Milan for example. However, Parma’s Christiano Lucarelli chose the number to represent his support for a left-wing group. Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon, with a previous history of fascist sympathy, chose to wear #88. This caused a stir: plenty of whom claimed 88 was an homage to the Nazis—88 representing HH, or rather ‘Heil Hitler’. Another explanation was that 88 is a symbolic number in Italian, representing four bollocks, the embodiment of a strong man. Strange, I would have thought circus freak myself. David Beckham chose #23 at Real Madrid for two reasons: one, because Raul’s #7 jersey is about as untouchable as MC Hammer, and two, Michael Jordan wore the number during his legendary tenure at Chicago Bulls.

Of course, when you think of representative squad numbers, the first person that pops into your head is (or at least should be) Ivan Zamorano. As principal centre-forward at Internazionale, the #9 shirt was his. However, after Ronaldo signed on from Barcelona on mega bucks, thanks to the deep pockets of the club’s owner and a tie-in with Nike, ‘El Terrible’ saw the jersey snatched away and given to the buck-toothed Brazillian. Zamorano wasn’t a happy bunny, he was pissed, and a bit superstitious. So Inter appeased him by handing over the squad number 18, with a plus sign in the middle: 1+8=9. Technically, a wearer of squad number 18 but actually the bearer of an equation, another no.9 jersey. Cue Mr. Robert Goulding.

The Zamorano/Ronaldo case was pretty well publicised when Bobbie Goulding signed for Salford in 2001. When he arrived the #7 jersey was already taken (was it Graham Holroyd’s number?), so he joined the equation brigade and had 1+6 on his back. Of course Bobbie being the persasive soul he is, the #7 shirt was his the following season. Other sports have reasons for large numbers, such as American football. Some NBA players wear daft numbers though too. I read somewhere that some Mexican footballers have wore three figure numbers on their back before now. Though the Goulding case is the only wacky number I can remember a rugby league player wearing. I’m sure a Super League club from a few years back ordered their squad in alphabetical order for a time; was it London Broncos? And Robbie Paul wore the #1 shirt at Bradford Bulls despite long since moving into a half-back/hooking role. Are there any more examples?