Camisetas Real Madrid
Why football shirt numbers are different by country.
Subscribe: | 🔔Make sure to enable all push notifications!🔔
Watch the most recent videos:

Shirt numbers were first used in European football on August 25th, 1928 in matches between Sheffield Wednesday and Arsenal, and Chelsea and Swansea Town. These fixtures began the convention of numbering players right to left, back to front, based on pitch location.

Subscribe to the Tifo Football Podcast:

Follow Tifo Football:
Website:
Twitter:
Facebook:
Instagram:

Listen to the Tifo Football podcast:
Acast:
Apple Podcasts:
Spotify:

Subscribe to the Tifo Football Podcast:
Subscribe to Tifo Basketball at

Watch more Tifo Football:
Tactics Explained:
Finances & Laws:
Tifo Football Podcast:
Most Recent Videos:
Popular Videos:

Produced by Tifo Studios: Taking an illustrated look into the beautiful game.

Music sourced from

About Tifo Football:
Informative, illustrated football analysis. Home of WhiteboardFootball®.

Tifo loves football. We know there’s an appetite for thoughtful, intelligent content, for stuff that makes the complicated simple.

Our illustrated and live action YouTube videos address all aspects of the game, including tactics, history, and the business of football.

We provide analysis on the Premier League, Champions League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga, World Cup and more.

Our podcasts interview some of the game’s leading figures. And our editorial covers football with depth and insight.

Tifo Football used to be uMAXit Football – we changed our name in November 2017 to better articulate who we are and what matters to us: making football accessible to its fans through story-telling and the expertise and insight of our team of writers and producers.

Tifo was nominated by the Football Supporters’ Federation for the ‘Best Online Media’ Award in 2017 and 2018.

We also make bespoke videos.

#shirtnumbers #squadnumbering #tactics

47 comentarios en «Why Football Shirt Numbers are Different By Country»
  1. Funny story about Brazil. Here, the numbering depends on the local adaptation of the WM in the so called diagonal system. It basically depended on which half back dropped to the line and was kept more offensively . Usually it was the left half back, but occasionally it was the right half back, in which case the number of the right back was 4 and not 2, reading 6, 3, 2, 4. Just like the Argentinian case. Some Brazilian clubs, like Corinthians and Fluminense, held to this tradition right up to the '90's.

  2. I'm not sure but I think it was on Euro84 that the portuguese national team mix up numbers and used a completely random number selection to confuse the man marking system of their opponents.

    They've reached the semi finals and only lost against Platini's France on their home soil.

  3. It’s interesting to compare with Rugby Union where the sport abandoned a brief flirtation with squad numbers in the 90s and has stuck rigidly to a position based 1-15 system ever since. Even though the positions and their numbers are not formally defined in the rules of either sport the numbers and their positions are the same worldwide in rugby union even if the names of the positions are not always the same. Tinkering with the numbers and their positions is frowned upon. Whereas even when football was 1-11 playing a number in the ‘wrong’ position was common. I remember a Nottingham Forest match where Brian Clough played his son Nigel at right back but Nigel wore 9 because that was his normal number.

  4. Trent Alexander Arnold is a text book definition of a 66. John Terry was a key figure in the evolution of the no. 26 role. Despite being a 14, Thierry Henry was rarely a second substitute and usually started. Fabien Barthez totally re-defined the number 16 role.

  5. When I was playing amateur football in the seventies, lads would automatically grab their favourite shirt, centre forwards would grab the 9, team loudmouth would grab the 10 and because of Best, Keegan, etc, the 7 caused a fight. I always grabbed the 11 first as nobody wanted it.

  6. In the 70ies, 80ies and 90ies (at least) in Italy 2 was right back, 3 left back, 5 stopper (centre back) and 6 was the sweeper (Scirea, Baresi…) number 4 was a centre midfielder, usually a holding mid.

  7. lol this explains a lot of the confusion we had playing in an international school with lads from all over… had a great german defensive guy that played as '6' which, me playing goalkeeper and being from Argentina, meant that he should stayed in the defensive….and the guy just keep going back to the midfield while I screamed at him savagely to get back down….20 years later, now I know why

  8. In Germany you usually call the deepest midfielder "Sechser" (nr.6), the one ahead "Achter" (nr.8) and if there´s a third one that´s even more attacking you´d call that one "Zehner" (nr.10) to the extent that some people get confused once you say "attacking midfielder" instead of "Zehner".

  9. In Italy, squad numbers are pretty much irrelevant, but here's what they would do.

    3-5-2 formation

    GK: 1 (obviously)
    CBs: 3,5, and 2 (from left to right)
    DMs: 4 and 6 (alternatively 6 could be a regista)
    CAM: 8
    LM: 11
    RM: 7
    STs: 9 and 10 (9 is the pure striker and 10 could be either a striker or a CF)

Deja una respuesta

Tu dirección de correo electrónico no será publicada. Los campos obligatorios están marcados con *