Patrick Schaal’s latest post:
June 12 marks the start of the World Cup: Brazil versus Croatia to start. Ecuador has decided to retire the Number 11 jersey. They recently played Australia in a friendly match in London and won 4-3. No one on the Ecuador team was wearing Number 11. A little background on this decision around the Number 11 jersey: Christian Benítez, their striker, recently passed away due to a heart attack at the age of 27 while playing for his club team in Qatar in July.
According to FIFA regulations, his number must be available for use in the World Cup in June. However Ecuador’s federation is going to resist this. They want to honor Benítez. “We will have to have it, that’s what we’ve been told,” Reinaldo Rueda, Ecuador Coach, told Reuters regarding the Number 11 Jersey for the World Cup in June.
The numbering convention, until a few decades ago, precluded individual players from owning their numbers. The goalkeeper wears Number 1 and the numbers go up from back to front, with the striker having Number 11. It’s a touchy situation- the team and fans want to honor a player and what other way to do that by holding on to their number but if every great player was honored, the numbers would be in hundreds by now. Maybe that’s not a bad thing?
from Patrick Schaal http://ift.tt/MUpmg1
from WordPress http://ift.tt/1gYpLY9
No comments:
Post a Comment