The practice of retiring a shirt number originally started in North American sports but then started to occur in Football.
This can be due to a couple of factors but mainly either because a player was a club legend or died.
It should be noted that the number can be reinstated at some point.
Lets look at a list of some players that had their number retired for various reasons. We name the player, the club and the actual number
Jude Bellingham – Birmingham City – Number 22
This was retired when Jude Bellingham was sold to Borussia Dortmund for £25 million, at the time he was only 17 at the time and it was for services to the club.
Slightly odd for such a short time as he had only played 41 games in total for the club.
Bobby Moore – West Ham United – 6
He was the captain of West Ham for 10 years and made 544 appearances for the club and scored 24 goals, at the same time he was the inspirational captain and player for England making 108 appearances for the national team lifting the World cup in 1966.
He is widely regarded as one of the greatest defenders in the history of football, and was cited by the great Pelé as the greatest defender that he had ever played against.
Legend is an easily used tag for modern footballers – this guy was and he died at a far too young age of 51.
Brescia – Roberto Baggio – 10
You might find it odd that it was Brescia that retired the number and not one of his other famous clubs such as Fiorentian and Juventus but before Baggio had joined Brescia, they had never been able to avoid relegation after being newly promoted to Serie A, in over 40 years.
During the four years under Baggio, Brescia recorded their best ever Serie A run and were never relegated
He played for numerous big clubs in Italy and also graced the Italian national team in various world cup finals.
Davide Astori – Cagliari/Fiorentina – 13
An unusual one here as this was 2 different clubs that retired the same number for a player due to tragic circumstances.
On 4 March 2018, Astori died in his sleep prior to Fiorentina’s match against Udinese,this was proven to be caused by cardiac arrest. He was only 31.
Paolo Maldini – Milan – 3
A legend at Milan and the Italian national team, sometimes stats don’t do a player justice. In Maldini’s case they do.
Maldini made 902 appearances with Milan.
Maldini spent all 25 seasons of his playing career in the Serie A with Milan, before retiring at the age of 41 in 2009. He won 26 trophies with Milan.
Maldini made his debut for Italy in 1988, retired in 2002 and by that time had 126 caps and 7 goals.
That’s just some of the highlights from a stunning career and that AC Milan team in their prime when he played for them was something else.
Diego Maradona – Napoli – 10
Diego Maradona can grace so many lists. Off the field his life was a bit of a mess, on the field with a ball at his feet he was an absolute genius of a player.
He turned Napoli into title winners in a league that was dominated by the more northern teams such as AC Milan, Inter Milan and Juventus.
Napoli won their first ever Serie A Italian Championship in 1986–87.
Napoli would win their second league title in 1989–90, and finish runners up in the league twice, in 1987–88 and 1988–89. They also won the Coppa Italia and UEFA Cup.
Johan Cruyff – Ajax – 14
He played for Ajax a total of 240 times in his first spell scoring 190 goals, a remarkable rate.
As a player, he won the Ballon d’Or three times, in 1971, 1973 and 1974. He also played for the successful Ajax team that won the European Cup 3 times.
Famous for the ‘cruyff turn’, he featured in the 1974 world cup where the Dutch would ultimately be runners up despite playing some of the best football of the tournament.
After being sold to Barcelona he helped transform the Catalan giants on the pitch helping them win their first trophy in 14 years.
Diego Maradona – Argentina – 10
I added this one in as I thought it was very interesting. Even though the number wasn’t actually retired.
The number 10 had been retired by Argentine Football Association to honour Maradona. Before the 2002 World Cup, the AFA submitted a squad list of 23 players for the tournament, listed 1 through 24, with the number 10 omitted.
FIFA rejected Argentina’s list. AFA ultimately submitted a revised list with Ariel Ortega, originally listed as number 23, as the number 10.
