Which maverick outfield footballers have worn the No 1 shirt? The Knowledge
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“Filip Knezevic debuted for Radnicki Nis playing in the No 1 shirt, in spite of being a winger not a keeper. What other notable outfield No 1s are there?” tweets Richard Wilson.
While outfield players wearing No 1 are still a rarity, they are not as uncommon as you might think. Nor are they a modern-football phenomenon. Josh Wright winds the clock back 45 years to give us what is possibly the first example. It’s the crazy Dutch blazing a trail, of course. “Striker Ruud Geels was given the No 1 shirt at the 1974 World Cup. Internationally, both the Netherlands and Argentina adopted a policy of assigning shirt numbers alphabetically. Argentina allocated the unusual outfield squad number to Norberto Alonso in 1978, Osvaldo Ardiles in 1982 and Sergio Almirón in 1986. Continue reading...
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