Jerseys Blog

A game of numbers – What do the numbers mean?

In the earliest days football you’re probably just a number.And your happiness among the top 11.But what did these numbers mean?

Numbers were posted on the official football shirts as media, fans and players to distinguish themselves from each other. Players were initially numbered according to starting line-up. Top players were numbered 1-11 starting with the goalkeeper. It worked sort of a baseball batter the order of one to nine. If you wore the number 12 years or older, you probably had a replacement football. Over time, the formation of one country to another. With the influx of television and media to make soccer more visible and popular figures has been associated with certain players, who numbered football jerseys increased marketing. The first 11 players were definitely in the lineup.In more recent decades importance assigned to a number is no longer limited to the first 11 players. But one song stands alone, and that is the “One” belonging only to the goalkeeper.

A brief overview of soccer jersey numbers and what they stand for is as follows:

Goal keeper
Right back – defender
Defender defender – center back
Lefty – defender or midfielder. The position gets its name from history are positioned on the left side of the field.
In the U.S., it is the center of Half Midfielder. In England, the Centre Half or Defender.
Versatile position in the U.S. and Europe, it is the midfielder. In England it is the center back. In Brazil, most of us, but all are versatile.
Forward, mostly right. The U.S. national team, it stands for Left Wing.
Two-way midfielder. The number represents a strong defensive and offensive player or a dominant player.
Striker, goal-scorer. It is a very important number.
Dominant player with a lot of responsibilities on and off the field.
“Slasher”. This is an attacker, such as a wing forward or wide midfielder, second most likely to score.
The changing Jersey

Since the beginning, and despite the lack of a reference standard in 11 points of the Cambridge Rules was established in 1848, has evolved football uniforms.

Broadly, the football uniform is fairly basic. This is just a short sleeved, soccer shorts, socks, shoes and shin guards. In its simple design, the football uniform keeps players cool during the warm seasons, when the game is usually played. During most of the Victorian era (1837 – 1901) players had no uniforms, just white shirts and pants with colorful caps or scarves to tell other teams. And many players wore long trousers.

And so it was until about 1870 when the English FA Cup so much media attention that the public demanded that teams dress that set them apart from each other to wear.

Team colors were often chosen based on the school or the club they represented as the white jersey adorning the Shrewsbury School blue Maltese cross. Often teams are not the rich society chose a less expensive look. They just wore white. Rich teams could afford to sport the colors of his club, but were obliged to provide alternative color in case two teams came to a game with the same color. And the players were expected to pay the bill until it was professional football, in which case the team paid for it.

Football Shirts welcomed the twentieth century with a traditional look, a huge fashion trend over the universe. Players wore a sweater custom made from durable, natural fibers in a variety of collar designs. Most popular among them were strung crew neck and wide vertical stripes. Horizontal stripes were too much. In the 1930s, rugby-style shirt collar replacement crew neck, most visibly in 1933 Arsenal red shirt with white sleeves and a wide white collar. Within a few years numbered jerseys were introduced in Britain, and after the war, the trend began to spread to other parts of the world.

The sweater has changed little over the coming decades. It was not until the Second World War, that steps were taken in the evolution of football uniforms.

In the middle of the 1900 team began wearing lightweight, synthetic fabrics, creating a look that was the mother of modern football jersey. And we saw the “continental style” jersey with lighter, short-sleeved V-neck design, though some parts of Europe were already sporting slim, lightweight look. Meanwhile, Brazil had a look all its own – a yellow shirt with green collar and cuffs, the brainchild of the young newspaper illustrator whose handiwork has won a national design competition.

The football uniform was the revolutionary year 1960 have deviated from the long, wide pants and button-down shirts from the previous ten years, to V-neck and round collars. The next 20 years found more commercial jerseys, teams looking for replica jerseys of notable players signing, complete with team logos, which were made with lighter, cooler fabrics to sell.

In keeping with the sleek ’60s look, shirts come in bold solid colors, allowing more football shirts visible under the stadium lights. The next decade found designers including their logos on the sleeves and fronts of the English and European football jerseys. The 1970s was a time back to the traditional colors with round neck and striped appearance.

By the mid-1980s the media began to feel that sweaters worn by professional football players have different brands condescendingly accepting. This began an era of football jersey marketing like never before. And football jerseys were made of lighter, durable polyester.

The year 1990 marked a time of increasing commercialism of football shirt, with a replica shirts baring the logos of professional teams are widely sold.

No longer made of cotton, technology continues to produce sweaters that are lighter and more breathable than ever, with cotton fabrics made from blends of nylon and polyester.

From the 1800s until the modern era of football, jerseys evolved with the times, and ever-changing demands of the player, recreational and professional alike.