Some numbers are handed out. Others are chosen, kept through transfers, and carry a reason. Every story here links to where it came from.
#95 · Inter Milan
Bastoni wears his brother's birth year. He made the promise when he was first called into the Atalanta senior squad, and has described it as a way of having his brother and the rest of his family on the pitch with him.
Source: sempreinter.com#76 · AC Milan
Shevchenko returned to Milan in 2008 to find his old number 7 gone, and followed the birth-year convention Ronaldinho had just set in the same window. He was born in 1976.
Source: forzaitalianfootball.com#39 · Arsenal
Guimarães wears 39 for his father's taxi. His father drove one in Brazil for over twenty years, and suggested the number when Bruno signed his first professional contract — the taxi, as Bruno puts it, gave the family everything they had. He has it tattooed, and has worn it at every club since.
Source: arsenal.com#41 · Arsenal
There is no grand story behind 41 — it was simply the number the West Ham kitman handed Rice at academy level, and he never gave it up. He has said he now feels changing it could affect his performances, which is why he kept it after his British-record move to Arsenal.
Source: arsenal.com#77 · Juventus
Buffon is listed at 77 for Parma in 2000/01, but he started that season on 88. He had said it stood for four balls — strength and determination, as he put it, which he needed to win back his place in the Italy side. The choice drew protests because 88 is used as neo-Nazi code, which Buffon said he had been unaware of, and he switched to 77.
Source: skysports.com#45 · Genoa
Balotelli picked 45 as a teenager at Inter, where the youth players were given numbers between 36 and 50. He chose it because four plus five is nine — the striker's number — and then scored in all four of his first games wearing it. He has called it lucky and kept it at every club since, Liverpool included.
Source: liverpoolfc.com#84 · AC Milan
Flamini joined Milan in 2008 in the same window as Ronaldinho and Shevchenko, and like both of them found his usual number taken. All three settled on the year they were born.
Source: en.wikipedia.org#74 · Fiorentina
Salah wore 74 at Fiorentina in memory of the seventy-four people killed in the Port Said stadium disaster in his native Egypt in 2012.
Source: forzaitalianfootball.com#52 · Arsenal
Bendtner switched from 26 to 52 at Arsenal on the advice of a clairvoyant, who told him it was his lucky number. It did not obviously work, and he later moved to 23.
Source: givemesport.com#39 · West Bromwich Albion
Anelka took 39 at Manchester City only because barely any numbers were left when he signed. He liked it enough to keep it for the rest of his career, wearing it at Bolton, Chelsea and West Brom.
Source: bwfc.co.uk#47 · Manchester City
Foden wears 47 for his grandfather Ronnie, who died at that age. He has turned down the number 10 at Manchester City to keep it, saying he would rather create his own legacy with 47.
Source: givemesport.com#80 · AC Milan
Ronaldinho arrived at Milan in 2008 to find Clarence Seedorf wearing 10 — a problem, given Nike had built a whole product line around his '10R' branding. Milan's position was that in twenty-three years they had never asked a player to hand over his number, so Ronaldinho took his birth year instead.
Source: mlssoccer.com#99 · AC Milan
Ronaldo joined Milan in January 2007 having worn 9 for most of his career, but Filippo Inzaghi already had it and Milan would not ask him to give it up. So he doubled it.
Source: givemesport.com#11 · Wolves
Patrício turned down the number 1 when he signed for Wolves in 2018. It belonged to Carl Ikeme, who had just retired after a year of treatment for acute leukaemia following eighteen years at the club, and Patrício chose not to inherit it. He took 11 instead — a number almost no goalkeeper wears.
Source: si.com#92 · Genoa
El Shaarawy came through at Milan as the birth-year habit was taking hold there, and 92 stuck: he has carried it through Monaco and Roma, long after the teenager it originally marked out had grown up.
Source: forzaitalianfootball.com#66 · Liverpool
Liverpool deliberately give academy graduates a high number — as kit manager Lee Radcliffe put it, they don't want a young player thinking he has made it straight away. Alexander-Arnold was handed 66 for a first-team chance at Tranmere in 2016, shrugged and kept it, and it became one of the most recognisable numbers in the Premier League.
Source: liverpoolfc.comKnow why a player wears their number? Open their page and use “Know why they wear this number?” — every submission is checked against a source before it appears here.